Throughout his career, in such works as Celtic Identity and the British Fringe (1999) and Scottish Nationality (2001), Murray Pittock has demonstrated a marked flair for adroitly exploring the contours of Scottish culture, identity, and mentality in the modern era. In his book The Road to Independence? Scotland since the Sixties, Pittock attempts a broader task: to craft an integrated examination of the culture, politics, and society of contemporary Scotland. However, Pittock does not merely write another history of Scotland aimed squarely at a Scottish audience. He also attempts to frame a narrative of contemporary Scotland for, as he puts it, “a broader market,” where Scottish history is not treated purely as a “subdivision” of British history, but rather as an important subject in its own right, the study of which reveals important aspects of the nature and function of the Union, statehood, and nationality in the United Kingdom today (27). In this, Pittock is largely successful, producing in the end a perceptive and engaging look at the changing contours of modern Scotland and its relationship with and within the United Kingdom.

Pittock structures his narrative around an overlapping set of themes and arguments that investigate various aspects of contemporary Scotland since the 1960s. In this, he explores six major topics: Scottish economic development and the realities of its postwar economic decline, buffeted by the twin pressures of British imperial divestment and capitalist globalization; the rise of Scottish nationalism and the Scottish National Party (SNP); the culture and political economy of Scotland's largest cities (Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen); cultural developments, including the rise of a distinct Scottish cultural agenda since the 1970s; the impact of immigrant communities and Scottish out-migration upon Scottish society, challenging the view of Scotland as a “monocultural” society; and, finally, the monumental changes since 1999 in both Scotland and Britain as a whole, wrought by devolution and the creation of a Scottish Parliament.

One key theme emphasized by Pittock explores the ways that the increase of centralizing tendencies within the British state throughout the twentieth century very much influenced the concomitant rise of Scottish nationalism in the latter half of the century. This centralization process, ranging from the increased use of centralized government policy approaches and legislation on health, welfare, and housing issues, to the encouragement of business and media consolidation policies that marginalized the regions vis-à-vis national culture and the national economy, did not on its own directly cause this rise in nationalism. Instead, it worked in conjunction with another major theme that Pittock identifies and weaves throughout his narrative to alter radically politics and society in Scotland. This was the removal of the British Empire as an avenue for Scottish participation, promotion, and patronage in the British state. Together, these forces came to a head in the 1960s, stimulating a process that led to the undermining of Scottish domestic autonomy in its professional (law and finance largely), religious, and educational sectors, autonomy largely enshrined in Scotland's union with England in 1707, and the loss of the entrepreneurial spirit that shaped Scotland's economy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As such, in this rapidly shifting and unsettling political and economic environment, Scots began, as Pittock describes it, to develop “a national consciousness for which Britishness was not, as before, a concentric identity, but—potentially at least—an oppositional one” (19). And thus, Scottish nationalism rapidly took off, and modern Scotland began a slow and potential march toward future independence. By and large, this is a somewhat familiar argument for those versed in the scholarship on modern Scotland, national identity, and nationalism (particularly the work of Richard Finlay, David McCrone, and Christopher Harvie). However, Pittock brings to this topic a fresh narrative and clarity of argument that successfully tie together the many disparate strands of contemporary Scottish culture, politics, and society in interesting and perceptive ways.

In this reviewer's view, Pittock's work exhibits one shortcoming. Although this perhaps represents a rather minor quibble, there is little to no reference to the pull European developments, particularly the processes of European integration and Europeanization, may have had upon modern Scottish politics and society. On the surface, this seems strange, considering Pittock's stated goal of crafting a narrative of modern Scottish history that treats Scotland as a fundamental component of, rather than a marginalized exception to, history in the British Isles. The 1960s/1970s marked the beginning of a pivotal period in the political and cultural relationship between the British Isles and the European continent, and Scotland certainly experienced its fair share of contention and struggle over these questions. Scottish nationalists as well, prominently preoccupied with questions of devolution and independence as they were, also spent considerable time and energy attempting to understand the process of European integration and Scotland's future role within or without it. A fuller treatment of these issues would further improve an already excellent exploration of culture, politics, and society in contemporary Scotland.