Neil Oliver's A History of Scotland
- Details
- Created on Sunday, 22 January 2012 18:21
- Written by Alasdair
I heartily recommend Neil Oliver's "A History of Scotland", available in book form from Amazon (Amazon Link) and also in 10 hour Epic DVD (Amazon Link). Oliver is an archaeologist by trade and a native Scot, whose energy and enthusiasm really shine through. The series contains stunning footage of Scotland's landscapes, stirring music and a few hundred years worth of treachery, betrayal and all that good stuff.
Alternatively, all the episodes are available to watch for free, on Youtube. I've collected each part in a list below, after the "read more" link;
Series 1 Episode 1 - The Last of the Free - Caledonia, The Pics and the Birth of Scotland.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Series 1 Episode 2 - Hammers of the Scots - Alexander II and William Wallace.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Series 1 Episode 3 - Bishop Makes King - The rise of Robert the Bruce to Bannockburn and beyond.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Series 1 Episode 4 - Language is Power - The feud between the Stewarts and MacDonalds and the emergence of Scots as the dominant language over Gaelic.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Series 1 Episode 5 - Project Britain - Mary Queen of Scots and James VI.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Series 2 Episode 1 - God's Chosen People - The story of the Covenanters, whose profound religious beliefs were declared in the National Covenant of 1638. This document licensed revolution, started the Civil War that cost King Charles I his head.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Series 2 Episode 2 - Let's Pretend - The story of how Scotland and England came together in 1707 to form Great Britain.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Series 2 Episode 3 - The Price of Progress - Through the winning and losing of an American empire and the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment, Neil Oliver reveals how in the second half of the 18th century Scotland was transformed from a poor northern backwater with a serious image problem into one of the richest nations on Earth.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Series 2 Episode 4 - This Land is Our Land - At the start of the 19th century, everything familiar was swept away. People fled from the countryside into the industrial towns of Scotland's central belt. Rural workers became factory workers - in some of the worst conditions in Europe. This new Scotland became a seedbed of revolution.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Series 2 Episode 5 - Project Scotland - As a partner in the British Empire, Scotland began the 20th century with an advanced economy and a world-beating heavy industry. But in the closing decades its sense of Britishness was in doubt and a Scottish Parliament sat in Edinburgh for the first time since 1707. Charting Scotland's darkest century, Neil Oliver discovers a country driven to self-determination through a series of economic crises so deep that her most striking export became her own disillusioned population.
