Book reviews: RMS Titanic, The First Violin | Scotland and Poland | Domination and Lordship

RMS Titanic, The First Violin ****by Yvonne Hume(Stenlake, £14.95)

"In slow, solemn tones, the air 'Nearer, my God, to Thee' was wafted across the water to our ears." So survivors recalled after the "unsinkable" ship went down. If the self-sacrifice of the band on board gained mythic status (though apparently true), that's because their actions seemed not only heroic, but also inspiringly human. Lavishly illustrated – everything from news clippings to concert programmes – this deeply moving book centres on the story of the author's great uncle, John Law Hume. Patiently, it pieces together the Titanic story, showing how its narrative tragically converged with the lives of a group of jobbing musicians, unassuming and yet conscientious unto death.

Scotland and Poland ****

edited by TM Devine and David Hesse

(John Donald, 20)

So tough is life in Poland, so harsh the climate, that it makes the inhabitants "cruel". John Barclay's assessment of 1621 prompted a response from the noble Lukasz Opalinksi: "This nation," said he of Barclay's Caledonian compatriots, "ashamed of its miserable and barren fatherland, flees over the seas and seeks its fortune in Poland." Fortunately, as these fascinating essays show, the two nations have traded more than insults. Contact with the Baltic ports predates the start-point of this book, in 1500; the 17th century saw a flood of Scottish mercenaries to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's successive wars. The flow of refugees after the Second World War and of recent migrant workers are just the latest chapters in a long history of friendship.

Domination and Lordship ****

by Richard Oram

(Edinburgh, 24.99)

The enthralling third volume in the acclaimed "New Edinburgh History of Scotland" reaches back to a time when Scotland as such did not yet exist. It does so, Oram argues, because between 1070 and 1230, a line of kings based in the east of Scotland won out over the monarchies of England and Norway. Scotland's sense of autonomy was also inspired by the forms of kingship and statehood taking shape on the continent. Parallel developments in the Church and in urban settlement – the rise of the "burgh" – ensured the emergence of a distinctly Scottish identity.