Stone Voices: The Search for Scotland Hardcover - 2003

From the publisher

The rediscovery of Scotland' s past and a wake-up call about its future, from a leading scholar-journalist
Scotland has a new Parliament and it has North Sea oil, but is it yet an independent, self-sustaining democracy? Is it a true nation? In Stone Voices, Neal Ascherson launches what he calls an imaginative invasion of his native land, searching for the relationships, themes, and fantasies that make up " Scotland." Beginning with a breathtaking portrait of the country' s landscape, and of the way humanity has indelibly marked even its rockiest contours, Ascherson takes us on a journey through Scotland' s past, interweaving his historical accounts with a rollicking report on a back-country bus expedition he joined during the 1997 referendum campaign that led to Scotland' s first modern Parliament. He asked voters then what kind of country they hoped for, what they feared, and what they expected-- questions that animate his book as well.
In his search for a nation, Acherson explores many themes: the slow, hybrid formation of the Scottish people over centuries of successive immigrations; the way their most renowned intellectuals and writers came to hate the national church; the peculiar nature of their diaspora; the coexistence of their search for an " authentic" Scotland with the myths others create; and the Scots' proud sense of true independence. Stone Voices enlightens us about Scotland, about Europe, and about the conditions for freedom that we must all seek today.