Books reviews: Scotland in Definition | Travels in Scotland

Published on 11/08/2012 00:00

MICHAEL Kerrigan casts his eye over the latest additions to the literary world.

Scotland in Definition

Edited By Iseabail Macleod and J Derrick McClure

(John Donald, £25)

Rating: ****

We thrill to the memory of Wallace and Bruce – why not to that of John Jamieson? We fill with pride at the thought of Watt – but what of Alasdair Mac Maighistir Alasdair? Since medieval times, an army of “harmless drudges” has been on the march, helping shape the Scots and Gaelic languages – and the accompanying cultures.

And “English” language and culture too: dictionaries were among the unostentatious glories of the Scottish Enlightenment – no more than mildly interesting to leaf through; but collectively crucial in codifying and organising modern ways of thinking. Sadly, Alasdair Gray apart, such Scottish heroes have remained unsung in the intellectual mainstream. 
This history of Scottish dictionaries is unabashedly scholarly in its approach. Not 
an easy or entertaining read, but a genuinely interesting 
(and sometimes surprising) 
one.

Travels in Scotland

By JG Kohl

(Ursula Cairns Smith, £10.88)

Rating: ****

It should really be entitled “Travels in Scott-land”: Kohl was one of the tide of tourists who came here in search of Sir Walter’s romantic Caledonia – yet he was alert and open-minded enough to find much more. The German geographer – a friend and protégé of Alexander von Humboldt – published a great many serious, scientific works on everything from ocean currents to colonial settlement patterns. By those standards, Travels in Scotland is the merest postcard home – but a strikingly intelligent and well-informed one.