Narrates the course of nationalism in Scotland since the Glorious Revolution, showing the strength of British ‘unionism’ through 1950 and the rise of Caledonian separatism in the 21st century. The shortcomings of the dual monarchy, dueling parliaments, and the threat of Catholic France prompted 1707’s Act of Union. In the first two-thirds of the 18th century, the merger was fragile because the treaty was subject to revision in Westminster. The revolt of 1715 was more serious (but less famous) than that of 1745; however, weak political leadership aside, the Presbyterian church was never willing to re-seat the Catholic Stuarts. After the Malt Tax riots of 1725, Walpole commissioned the personal authority of the Earl of Islay (later the Duke of Argyll, to be succeeded by Henry Dundas), in exchange for parliamentary support: the Scottish learned to play the game of patronage. England’s contemporary expansion meant Scotland had struck a good deal, in the author’s view, and quickly expanded trade to the West Indies, North America, and India under the cover of the English navy and (lack of) tariffs. The Seven Years’ War channeled the clans’ militarism, the Scots proving highly loyalist during the American and then the French Revolution. Scottish Enlightenment figures also were unionist, and so too capital Edinburgh although Glasgow was more imperialist.

            Pessimists thought Scottish culture would be assimilated in the 1800s, but to the contrary Victoria identified with Scotland and the Highland military regiments were high status in imperial symbology. (World War II units were mixed, unlike the WWI, perhaps the last great unionist phenomenon.) The Scottish Burgh Act of 1833 devolved town management to the bourgeois, extending the remit of Europe’s most devolved region-in-state. But the Disruption of 1843, over clerical appointments, demonstrated Scottish identify was brittle. After the establishment of the Scottish Office in 1885 power began reverting to London. Over the long 19th century (1825-1936), 2.3 million Scots emigrated, among the highest totals in Europe, most to the US, Canada, or Australia – a phenomenon counter to expanding industrial economy which the author does not address.

            The Depression persuaded the Scots to prioritize employment, welfare, and personal security. Scottish workers were highly unionized because of manufacturing’s predominance, and simultaneously its economy was statist.  The war was seen to validate central planning (while nationalism was associated with Nazism). In the postwar era, which occupies the majority of Devine’s work, nearly 90 percent of new housing to 1965 was guilt by government, the highest outside the Soviet bloc: supplies available to private firms were limited and public costs subsidized. By 1960, the British empire was no long so important to the industrial economy of Glasgow and west-central Scotland. Further, imperial history fell out of favor in the academy: theories of ‘internal colonization’ arose with the takeover of Scottish concerns by England and American companies. Politicians were judged by delivering spoils of state. The Tories lost the loyalties of Presbyterians and the middle class, while Catholics (from Ireland) remained Labour voters. The roots of the party’s decline predated Thatcherite ‘neoliberalism’. Further the military, monarchy, and later Westminster (undermined by Brussels) fall in status.

            Between 1979-81, 20 percent of Scottish industrial jobs were lost; but 1 in 3 worked in government and the region was receiving outsized grants under the Barnett formula. Thatcher sometimes showed restraint (as in preserving the Ravenscraig steel plan), but economic dislocation combined with Tory hierarchical politics made her the ‘greatest Scottish nationalist’. After 1987 the ‘democratic deficit’ – no Conservative MPs in Scotland – set in motion campaigns for devolution and then independence. The infamous poll tax actually originated in Scotland, and brought in a year early to stave off rising land taxes, but was seen to undermine autonomy. Thatcher didn’t cause devolution but accelerated it: since Conservatives were historically the party of union, Labour became heir to the ‘natural party of government’ and the Scottish National Party (SNP) the alternative. The 1988 Claim of Right for Scotland drew Labour into a pro-devolution position, and resulted in a constitutional convention which the Tories and SNP skipped. 1997’s Labour win produced a referendum on a Scottish parliament in Holyrood, which won 75 percent of the vote. Donald Dewar performed credibility albeit briefly as the first First Minister, particularly in recasting the terms of reference to encompass all powers not specifically reserved to Westminster.

          Without devolution the SNP could not have stablished itself. Unique in regarding residence, not culture, as sufficient for Scottishness, the party failed in 2007 but triumphed in 2011 as Labour suffered the long-term effects of union membership losses, Catholics achieving parity, and general resentment of state spending (which accounted for up to 75 percent of Glasgow economy) being controlled in London. In the 2014 referendum, set against the backdrop of the Global Financial Crisis, democracy flourished despite the ruling out of a ‘devo max’ option. Labour sided with unionism, to its subsequent discredit. Questions surrounding Scotland’s putative currency hurt the ‘yes’ campaign; the establishment lined up against. Despite pulling level in the final days, the referendum lost 55-45. Symbolic concessions from prime minister David Cameron followed, but the Tories were again unrepresented after the 2015 election, and Scotland next voted to stay in the European union.

          From the Earl of Islay’s time – and perhaps earlier, originating in the Highland clans? – Scotland seems to have absorbed patronage and corporatism: in the 21st century, it resembles the eastern Länder of otherwise market-oriented Germany, crossed with the separatism of Catalonia. Citing political science research, Devine notes that when controlling for class, the Scots distinguish themselves by identity in the same ways as the English, but not by political values. He might have done more to draw this thread over the past three centuries, perhaps touching on language and legal tradition. The narrative is elliptical but clear, although tending into polling numbers and other political science artefacts.