Scottish History in Transnational and Comparative Contexts

Geographically, a long-established strength of our unit is research on Scottish history from the early middle ages to the 1960s in its transnational connections and comparative dimensions. In close partnership with colleagues working on environmental history and heritage, our research explores Scotland's history, from local, to regional and national, and its place within networks that reach across the Atlantic and to northern and central Europe. It thus underscores important aspects of the transnational dimensions of British history more broadly and thus makes a sustained contribution to one of the most vibrant fields of our discipline.

Our research ranges from scholarship on connections between Scotland and northern Europe during the medieval period, especially Scottish-European dynastic and monastic networks, to early modern connections between Ireland and Scotland, to links between social reformers in the early twentieth century or trade union activists during the Cold War in Scotland and the United States. It also explores, through our collaboration with Stirling University’s archives, connections with the networks of anti-colonial activism in post-1945 southern Africa.

Our research in this field is represented in two book series (Archipelagic Studies, forthcoming with Peter Lang, and North Atlantic World) led by Stirling historians, and is also reflected in a suite of landmark edited volumes.