T.M. Devine and Jenny Wormald: Introduction: The Study of Modern Scottish History; Part One: Some Fundamentals of Modern Scottish History; 1 T.C. Smout: Land and Sea: The Environment; 2 Michael Anderson: The Demographic Factor; 3 Colin Kidd and James Coleman: Mythical Scotland; 4 Stewart J. Brown: Religion and Society; 5 Cairns Craig: The Literary Tradition; 6 Robert Dodgshon: Clearances and the Transformation of the Scottish Countryside; 7 T.M. Devine: A Global Diaspora; Part Two: Reformation, Regal Union and Civil Wars 1500 - c.1680; 8 Andrea Thomas: The Renaissance; 9 Jenny Wormald: Reformed and Godly Scotland?; 10 Laura Stewart: The 'Rise' of the State?; 11 T.M. Devine: Reappraising the Early Modern Economy 1500 - 1660; 12 Alasdair Raffe: Scotland Restored and Reshaped: Politics and Religion; 13 Elizabeth Ewan: The Early Modern Family; 14 Patrick Fitzgerald: The Seventeenth Century Irish Connection; Part Three: Union and Enlightenment c.1680 - 1760; 15 Karin Bowie: New Perspectives on Pre-Union Scotland; 16 Steve Murdoch and Esther Mijers: Migrant Destinations; 17 Clare Jackson: Union Historiographies; 18 Daniel Szechi: Scottish Jacobitism in its International Context; 19 Alexander Broadie: The rise (and fall?) of the Scottish Enlightenment; 20 Anne-Marie Kilday: The Barbarous North? Criminality in Early Modern Scotland; Part Four: The Nation Transformed 1760 - 1914; 21 Stana Nenadic: Industrialisation and the Scottish People; 22 Douglas Hamilton: Scotland and the eighteenth-century Empire; 23 Gordon Pentland: The Challenge of Radicalism; 24 Richard Rodger: The Scottish Cities; 25 Graeme Morton: Identity within the Union State; 26 Ben Braber: Immigrants; 27 Angela McCarthy: The Scottish Diaspora since 1815; 28 Esther Breitenbach: Impact of the Victorian Empire; Part Five: The Great War to the New Millennium 1914 - 2010; 29 E.W. McFarland: The Great War; 30 Richard J. Finlay: The Inter-War Crisis: The Failure of Extremism; 31 Graham Walker: The Religious Factor; 32 Catriona M. M. Macdonald: Gender and Nationhood in Modern Scottish Historiography; 33 Ewen Cameron: The Stateless Nation and the British State since 1918; 34 Iain McLean: Challenging the Union; 35 George Peden: A New Scotland?: The Economy; 36 David McCrone: A New Scotland?: Society and Culture

Over the last three decades major advances in research and scholarship have transformed understanding of the Scottish past. In this landmark study some of the most eminent writers on the subject, together with emerging new talents, have combined to produce a large-scale volume which reconsiders in fresh and illuminating ways the classic themes of the nation's history since the sixteenth century as well as a number of new topics which are only now receiving detailed attention. Such major themes as the Reformation, the Union of 1707, the Scottish Enlightenment, clearances, industrialisation, empire, emigration, and the Great War are approached from novel and fascinating perspectives, but so too are such issues as the Scottish environment, myth, family, criminality, the literary tradition, and Scotland's contemporary history. All chapters contain expert syntheses of current knowledge, but their authors also stand back and reflect critically on the questions which still remain unanswered, the issues which generate dispute and controversy, and sketch out where appropriate the agenda for future research.

The Handbook also places the Scottish experience firmly into an international historical perspective with a considerable focus on the age-old emigration of the Scottish people, the impact of successive waves of immigrants to Scotland, and the nation's key role within the British Empire. The overall result is a vibrant and stimulating review of modern Scottish history: essential reading for students and scholars alike.

T. M. Devine previously held the Glucksman Research Chair in Irish-Scottish Studies, was Director of the AHRC Centre in Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen, and was Deputy Principal of the University of Strathclyde. He holds Honorary Professorships at the Universities of North Carolina and Guelph, and has won all three major prizes for Scottish historical research. He is Fellow of the British Academy and Royal Society of Edinburgh, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy. He was appointed OBE for services to Scottish History (2005) and awarded Scotland's supreme academic accolade, the Royal Gold Medal, by HM the Queen on the recommendation of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2001.
Jenny Wormald was previously C.E. Hodge Fellow in History at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She was a British Academy Reader in the Humanities and has held Visiting Professorships at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and the University of the South, Sewanee, and Research Fellowships at the Shakespeare Folger Library, Washington, DC, and the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries (Scotland), and the Royal Society for the Arts.