1820: Scottish Rebellion: Essays on a Nineteenth-Century Insurrection

Edited by Gerard Carruthers; Edited by Kevin Thomas Gallagher; Edited by Craig Lamont; Edited by George Smith

The 1820 Scottish Rising has been increasingly studied in recent decades. This collection of essays looks especially at local players on the ground across multiple regional centres in the west of Scotland, as well as the wider political circumstances within government and civil society that provide the rising’s context. It examines insurrectionist preparation by radicals, the progress of the events of 1820, contemporary accounts and legacy memorialisation of 1820, including newspaper and literary testimony, and the monumental ‘afterlife’ of the rising.As well as the famous march of radicals led by John Baird and Andrew Hardie, so often seen as the centre of the 1820 ‘moment’, this volume casts light on other, more neglected insurrectionary activity within the rising and a wide set of cultural circumstances that make 1820 more complex than many would like to believe. 1820: Scottish Rebellion demonstrates that the legacy of 1820 may be approached in numerous ways that cross disciplinary boundaries and cause us to question conventional historical interpretations.

Reviews of 1820: Scottish Rebellion: Essays on a Nineteenth-Century Insurrection

'Hugely enlightening, it includes a host of press accounts and literary testimonies, and hones in on the insurrection's lasting impact' — Rosie Morton * Scottish Field *