Understanding Scotland: The Sociology of a Nation (International Library of Sociology (Paperback))

by David Mc Crone (Author), David Mc Crone (Author)

• New

  Illustrated
  2001

  $63.35

  Understanding Scotland has been recognised since publication as the key text on the sociology of Scotland. This wholly revised edition provides the first sustained study of post-devolution Scottish society. It contains new material on: * the establishment of the Scottish parliament in 1999 * social and political data from the 1997 general elections * the new cultural iconography of Scotland * Scotland as a European society. For anyone wishing to understand Scottish society in particular or the general issues involved in nation building, McCrone's clear-headed coherently argued account of the main issues will be essential reading.

• Used

  Paperback
  1992

  $5.77

  Scotland stands at the centre of sociological concerns in the late 20th century. Rather than being an awkward, ill fitting case, a nation without a state, it is at the centre of the discipline's postmodernist dilemma. Scotland has been part of the United Kingdom, a highly centralized and unitary state for nearly three hundred years, yet has survived the Union in 1707 as a distinctive civil society. Its sense of difference and identity has, indeed, grown rather than diminished. In many respects Scotland is a society with an unmade history, for its history seems incomplete and unpredictable. In a world where the nation state is losing its raison d'etre, Scotland provides an important test case for the proposition that the quest for self-determination occurs in the context of major shifts in political and social arrangements at the global level.