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A review by codubh
Before Scotland: A Prehistory by Alistair Moffat
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.0
A unique perspective of prehistory written in a rich and informative manner. It's clear Moffat has spent years if not decades researching the topic of Scotland before it was a single nation, and he paints a very comprehensive picture of an almost nine millennia timespan; an impressive feat considering the first eight millennia have almost no written records. He uses a mixture of placenames, archeological findings, and contemporary anthropology to illustrate the lives of the first peoples in Scotland, who despite claims of various invasions supplanting them, have been shown to be the ancestors of most modern day Scots.
It also reaches a very interesting conclusion, that the concept of Scotland as a cohesive nation first came about under a Gaelic kingdom, which serves as a useful rejoinder for those who claim Gaelic isn't native to half of the country.
There were some flaws in the book that detracted from my experience. It comprises of eight fairly hefty chapters with no clear subsections, which impairs its digestibility. I also found the penultimate chapter, concerning the Romans, a bit of a slog; despite Moffat's insistence that there's more to history than lists of dates and rulers, this chapter falls victim to that technique all too often. While there is a map the beginning of the book, many of the placenames mentioned throughout don't feature on it, and it's unclear if it refers to a particular period. I think the use of several maps portraying different periods may have been more illustrative.
An illuminating book with unique ideas; I'd like to read books with similar approaches to prehistory in different countries. The formatting does present a challenge however, and requires some persistence to get the most out of it.
It also reaches a very interesting conclusion, that the concept of Scotland as a cohesive nation first came about under a Gaelic kingdom, which serves as a useful rejoinder for those who claim Gaelic isn't native to half of the country.
There were some flaws in the book that detracted from my experience. It comprises of eight fairly hefty chapters with no clear subsections, which impairs its digestibility. I also found the penultimate chapter, concerning the Romans, a bit of a slog; despite Moffat's insistence that there's more to history than lists of dates and rulers, this chapter falls victim to that technique all too often. While there is a map the beginning of the book, many of the placenames mentioned throughout don't feature on it, and it's unclear if it refers to a particular period. I think the use of several maps portraying different periods may have been more illustrative.
An illuminating book with unique ideas; I'd like to read books with similar approaches to prehistory in different countries. The formatting does present a challenge however, and requires some persistence to get the most out of it.