Preface

Summary

This volume emerges from a conference held at the University of Strathclyde in 2018 that sought to acknowledge the enormous contribution made by Allan Macinnes to the study of early modern Scottish, British, and European history. Macinnes, currently Emeritus Professor at Strathclyde, retired in 2014 and, we believed, there was an urgent need to celebrate his exceptional career while also reflecting on the significance of his scholarship. Doing so has allowed us to think deeply about the transformation of Scottish History as a discipline in the past half-century as well as the development of the early modern British historiographical landscape. Colleagues, friends, and former students of Macinnes were invited to consider, therefore, how he had influenced their work and in what ways they saw it as building on, or a response to, his research. The key theme that emerged in the essays that follow was the way in which Macinnes had emphasised the need to consider Scotland – or, indeed, other territorial units – comparatively and in an international context. How, in other words, had Scotland interacted with the wider world? As will soon become clear, the wide-ranging contributions to this volume reflect, indeed, a career spent collaborating fruitfully beyond Scotland's borders and taking Scottish History to a global audience.

The volume has, however, been delayed severely by a number of unforeseen circumstances – not least serious illness, bereavement, and the impact of COVID-19. It is with great pleasure, then, that we can finally thank the institutions and individuals that helped to make the conference such a success, and who have supported the volume to publication. For their generous financial support, we thank, firstly, the Scottish Historical Review Trust and the Economic and Social History Society of Scotland. For her organisational nous and good humour, we thank Rowena Hutton. For the memorable whisky-tasting that concluded the first day of the conference, we thank Kieran German. For the provision of whisky glasses and the design of commemorative glassware, we thank Campbell McClure and Glencairn Crystal. For his fantastic last-minute discussion of the ‘Ice Pick’ on the second day, we thank Stephen Mullen. For his own heartfelt note of thanks, we are grateful to Mike Russell MSP.