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A review by rygallagher
A History Of Scotland by Neil Oliver
4.0
As a professor from college repeatedly told our class: “Look. Up. Your. Authors!”
I enjoyed the narrative of this book. I knew going in that it was popular level work, and it was covering a vast amount of history, so I think I had managed expectations as far as scholarly detail and nuance. I had also heard that Neil Oliver was a controversial figure and I did some light googling but didn’t find anything majorly problematic, and I enjoyed his Viking book and BBC documentaries without getting any white supremacist vibes. So we read it and not having a lot of experience with Scottish history it was hard to be entirely critical in analysis of it — it even seemed to be progressive at times when it came to race or class-consciousness, or criticism of 18-19th century robber-baron tobacco and iron lords, Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberalism, and MacDiarmid’s neofascism, even pointing out how ridiculous and hypocritical the American War for Independence was. But looking back his criticism of those things still seems to be from a motivation of nationalistic self-determination as opposed to an international working class self-determination. It’s easy to be progressive in relation to the past, the real test is being progressive without the benefit of historical consensus.
But after finishing it and reading some of the other reviews that point out some problematic passages with implicit misogyny, ethnic purity, etc I found Oliver’s Twitter and it’s just an absolute dumpster fire of COVID-trutherism, “muh rights” and Jordan Peterson. Not ideal!
I don’t think he is writing white supremacist revisionist history — I think he’s just a boomer nationalist neoliberal who sees Smith and Hume’s era of Scottish Enlightenment as the pinnacle of all civilization. The narrative deteriorated a bit after that era. He even shoehorns in this random defense of TERF J.K. Rowling, saying she is the best-selling author of all time and somehow still an unappreciated victim? There are just some comments that would be given the benefit of the doubt if you never looked at his Twitter feed.
It’s fine for popular level entertainment I guess, I enjoyed learning more about familiar characters like William Wallace and Mary Queen of Scots, and his nuance in how the Protestant Reformation spurred on early (white, liberal) democratic movements, but he doesn’t even really cite his sources and as a person is pretty problematic. I am sure there are better sources for Scottish history out there, and I’m not going to recommend an author who tweets about Jordan Peterson and anti-vax rhetoric.
I enjoyed the narrative of this book. I knew going in that it was popular level work, and it was covering a vast amount of history, so I think I had managed expectations as far as scholarly detail and nuance. I had also heard that Neil Oliver was a controversial figure and I did some light googling but didn’t find anything majorly problematic, and I enjoyed his Viking book and BBC documentaries without getting any white supremacist vibes. So we read it and not having a lot of experience with Scottish history it was hard to be entirely critical in analysis of it — it even seemed to be progressive at times when it came to race or class-consciousness, or criticism of 18-19th century robber-baron tobacco and iron lords, Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberalism, and MacDiarmid’s neofascism, even pointing out how ridiculous and hypocritical the American War for Independence was. But looking back his criticism of those things still seems to be from a motivation of nationalistic self-determination as opposed to an international working class self-determination. It’s easy to be progressive in relation to the past, the real test is being progressive without the benefit of historical consensus.
But after finishing it and reading some of the other reviews that point out some problematic passages with implicit misogyny, ethnic purity, etc I found Oliver’s Twitter and it’s just an absolute dumpster fire of COVID-trutherism, “muh rights” and Jordan Peterson. Not ideal!
I don’t think he is writing white supremacist revisionist history — I think he’s just a boomer nationalist neoliberal who sees Smith and Hume’s era of Scottish Enlightenment as the pinnacle of all civilization. The narrative deteriorated a bit after that era. He even shoehorns in this random defense of TERF J.K. Rowling, saying she is the best-selling author of all time and somehow still an unappreciated victim? There are just some comments that would be given the benefit of the doubt if you never looked at his Twitter feed.
It’s fine for popular level entertainment I guess, I enjoyed learning more about familiar characters like William Wallace and Mary Queen of Scots, and his nuance in how the Protestant Reformation spurred on early (white, liberal) democratic movements, but he doesn’t even really cite his sources and as a person is pretty problematic. I am sure there are better sources for Scottish history out there, and I’m not going to recommend an author who tweets about Jordan Peterson and anti-vax rhetoric.