In the 1990s Tom Devine described the Scottish experience of emigration as a “paradox” because in the course of the period from 1850 to 1950, most emigrants traveled from backward European agrarian economies to a more advanced industrial one in the New World, while emigrant Scots traveled from one advanced economy to another to improve their material fortunes. They utilized their literacy, education, industrial training, and ability to speak English to push themselves further up the migrant pecking order, especially in North America. In per capita terms, only Norway and Ireland surpassed Scotland in the export of people during this period, and inevitably, this exodus left a mark on Scottish society. With Scottish independence now asserting itself as the dominant political issue north of the border with England, the diasporatic dimension of Scottish identity has grown in significance. Mobilizing a broader, transnational Scottish community seems an ideal way for a relatively small and stateless nation to assume an international profile. (Undoubtedly, Ireland established the template that Scottish politicians of various hues have sought to emulate.)

Meanwhile, the growth in the Scottish independence movement has been matched by a growing awareness of Scottish roots in the New World. The phenomenon of Tartan Week in the United States, for instance, in which dubious claims that Thomas Jefferson based the American Declaration of Independence on the Scottish Declaration of Arbroath of 1320 are advanced to celebrate the contribution of Scots Americans, exemplify one aspect of this phenomenon of “global Scottishness.”

Predictably, ideas of globalization theory have helped fuel interest in the migration of people. The Modern Scottish Diaspora: Contemporary Debates and Perspectives, a volume of essays based on a conference engaging these ideas and Edited by Murray Stewart Leith and Duncan Sim, is a welcome addition to the growing literature on Scottish global engagement and covers a wide spectrum of topics. The breadth of essays is both a strength and weakness: a strength because it goes beyond the usual historical parameters of the issues involved and focuses on a number of dimensions both domestic and international, such as politics and marketing, which tend to get short shrift; a weakness because including such a large number of essays curtails space for discussion and sacrifices depth.

Leith and Sim open the collection with a general discussion that considers, among other things, the appropriateness of using the term “diaspora” for Scottish emigration, given that the vast bulk of it was voluntary. This is followed by two historical surveys by Ted Cowan and Michael Fry respectively, which provide an overview from medieval to modern times and demonstrate that the Scottish emigrant was part and parcel of Scottish society from early modern times. Indeed, even before then, the intellectual and cultural links with Europe were strong. Since the nineteenth century, it has become almost an article of Scottish historical faith that the nation has always had a strong internationalist outlook—a fact reiterated by the first minister following the Brexit vote, in which Scotland, contra the United Kingdom as a whole, voted overwhelmingly to remain part of the European Union. The cultivation of an overseas Scottish identity is the subject of a chapter by Kim Sullivan that demonstrates the critical importance of clubs and associations, especially in the New World, in shaping and holding an idea of Scottish distinctiveness in the émigré community. The next four chapters cover business, politics, Scots in England, and English people in Scotland and Europe.

It is here that we see the twofold problem of the rapidity of political change and its impacts on contemporary studies and the elusive nature of Scottish national identity. Before the independence referendum in 2014, it was assumed that the support for the union would be fairly overwhelming, but it turned out to be much narrower than many had initially predicted (45 percent to 55 percent). Rather than settle the issue, therefore, the referendum added momentum to the Scottish independence movement, with the Scottish National Party establishing an electoral hegemony that shows no sign of dissipating. The recent Brexit vote has more or less led to the establishment of a separate Scottish foreign policy as the political debate in Scotland now focuses on the choice of the Big Union (Europe) or the Wee Union (Britain). The startling speed of change has left this volume's chapters on politics somewhat dated, although Andrew Mycock puts his finger on the central issue of the tensions between a civic tradition in Scottish nationalism, which includes all residents in Scotland, and the ethnic variant which reaches out to the diaspora. The practical reality of residents having a vote has meant that the Scottish National Party has increasingly abandoned the diaspora because of its ethnic connotations and sought to emphasize the civic tradition, and this trend has become more apparent in light of the differences between England and Scotland on the issue of the European Union. The different approaches can be seen in the context of the two referendums. In the Scottish one, set by the Scottish government, all residents irrespective of nationality were given the vote, and the voting age was lowered to sixteen. Scots outside of Scotland did not get the vote. In the European referendum conducted by the British government, European citizens were excluded, but British immigrants in Europe and British Commonwealth countries were given the vote. Sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds did not participate. So for political purposes, the promotion of the civic tradition of nationalism has meant that the enthusiasm that gathered around the cultivation of the diaspora has died down quite a bit. The remainder of the volume covers an eclectic range of topics dealing with sport, Gaelic heritage, tourism, and the media that lacks the focus and direction of the earlier part of the book. That said, the chapter by Euan Hague on Scottish representation in American mass romantic novels is fascinating in the way that this literary genre, which has become an international success, has little real connection with Scotland.