Set Adrift Upon the World

Set Adrift Upon the World

Author: James Hunter

Publisher: Birlinn Ltd

Published: 2015-10-15

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 0857902628

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Winner of Saltire Scottish History Book of the Year They would be better dead, they said, than set adrift upon the world. But set adrift they were - thousands of them, their communities destroyed, their homes demolished and burned. Such were the Sutherland Clearances, an extraordinary episode, involving the deliberate depopulation of much of a Scottish county. What was done in the course of that episode was planned and carried out by a small group of men and one woman. Most of those involved wrote a great deal about their actions, intentions and feelings, and much of it has been preserved. There are no equivalent collections of material from those whose communities ceased to exist. Their feelings and fears are harder to access, but they are by no means irrecoverable. In this book James Hunter tells the story of the Sutherland Clearances. His researches took him to archives in Scotland, England and Canada, to the now deserted straths of Sutherland, to the frozen shores of Hudson Bay. The result is a gripping, moving, definitive account of a people's struggle for survival in the face of tragedy and disaster which includes experiences which have not featured in any previous such account.


The Appin Murder

The Appin Murder

Author: James Hunter

Publisher: Birlinn

Published: 2021-09-01

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 1788853229

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On a hillside near Ballachulish in the Scottish Highlands in May 1752, a rider is assassinated by a gunman. The murdered man is Colin Campbell, a government agent traveling to nearby Duror where he’s evicting farm tenants to make way for his relatives. Campbell’s killer evades capture, but Britain’s rulers insist this challenge to their authority must result in a hanging. The sacrificial victim is James Stewart, who is organizing resistance to Campbell’s takeover of lands long held by his clan, the Appin Stewarts. James is a veteran of the Highland uprising crushed in April 1746 at Culloden. In Duror he sees homes torched by troops using terror tactics against rebel Highlanders. The same brutal response to dissent means that James’s corpse will for years hang from a towering gibbet and leave a community utterly ravaged. Introducing this new edition of his account of what came to be called the Appin Murder, historian James Hunter tells how his own Duror upbringing introduced him to the tragic story of James Stewart.


Insurrection

Insurrection

Author: James Hunter

Publisher: Birlinn

Published: 2019-12-10

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 1788852311

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The author of On the Other Side of Sorrow gives a detailed account of the causes and effects of the Scottish potato famine that began in 1846. When Scotland’s 1846 potato crop was wiped out by blight, the country was plunged into crisis. In the Hebrides and the West Highlands, a huge relief effort came too late to prevent starvation and death. Farther east, meanwhile, towns and villages from Aberdeen to Wick and Thurso protested the cost of the oatmeal that replaced potatoes as the people’s basic foodstuff. Oatmeal’s soaring price was blamed on the export of grain by farmers and landlords cashing in on even higher prices elsewhere. As a bitter winter gripped and families feared a repeat of the calamitous famine then ravaging Ireland, grain carts were seized, ships boarded, harbors blockaded, a jail forced open, and the military confronted. The army fired on one set of rioters. Savage sentences were imposed on others. But crowds of thousands also gained key concessions. Above all they won cheaper food. Those dramatic events have long been ignored or forgotten. Now, in James Hunter, they have their historian. The story he tells is, by turns, moving, anger-making, and inspiring. In an era of food banks and growing poverty, it is also very timely. Praise for Insurrection “Hunter never forgets that history is first of all narrative—and this book is rich in stories—or that is subject is the experience of individual men and women, creatures of flesh and blood, not abstractions. Insurrection is fascinating reading, both painful and uplifting.” —Allan Massie, the Scotsman (UK)


Adrift

Adrift

Author: W. Michael Gear

Publisher: Astra Publishing House

Published: 2021-06-01

Total Pages: 513

ISBN-13: 0756417171

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The fifth book in the thrilling Donovan sci-fi series returns to a treacherous alien planet where corporate threats and dangerous creatures imperil the lives of the colonists. The Maritime Unit had landed in paradise. After a terrifying ten-year transit from Solar System aboard the Ashanti, the small band of oceanographers and marine scientists were finally settled. Perched on a reef five hundred kilometers out from shore, they were about to embark on the first exploration of Donovan's seas. For the twenty-two adults and nine children, everything is new, exciting, and filled with wonder as they discover dazzling sea creatures, stunning plant life, and fascinating organisms. But Donovan is never what it seems; the changes in the children were innocuous--oddities of behavior normal to kids who'd found themselves in a new world. Even then it was too late. An alien intelligence, with its own agenda, now possesses the children, and it will use them in a most insidious way: as the perfect weapons. How can you fight back when the enemy is smarter than you are, and wears the face of your own child? Welcome to Donovan.


The World Set Free

The World Set Free

Author: H. G. Wells

Publisher: Arcturus Publishing

Published: 2023-03-01

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1398832804

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In this chilling science fiction novel by H.G. Wells, rich and powerful men wage the ultimate war "to end all wars". Published in 1914, The World Set Free was ahead of its time, telling the story of how newly-acquired nuclear weapons led to warfare between nations. In the book, Wells explores how social and moral dilemmas can result in self-destruction and chaos before eventually leading to solutions that create a unique utopia. Even today, this classic novel speaks to the challenges society faces due to the rise of science and technology. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary graphic cover designs. Together they make a wonderful collection which is perfect for any home library.


The Making of the Crofting Community

The Making of the Crofting Community

Author: James Hunter

Publisher: Birlinn Ltd

Published: 2018-05-17

Total Pages: 542

ISBN-13: 0857902865

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This book has been seminal in bringing to the fore the injustices that have been inflicted on the Highlands in the name of government and landlord – injustices often lost in the name of dry statistics and academic balance. Written by a man who has gone on to become both an award-winning historian of the Highlands and a leading figure in the public life of the region, The Making of the Crofting Community has attracted praise, inspired debate, and provoked outrage and controversy over the years. This book remains necessary to challenge standard academic interpretations of the Highland past. Having long been one of the classics of Birlinn's John Donald list, this revised and updated new edition includes a substantial new preface and an extensive reworking of the existing text.


The Highland Clearances

The Highland Clearances

Author: Eric Richards

Publisher: Birlinn

Published: 2012-11-05

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 0857905244

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The Highland Clearances stands out as one of the most emotive chapters in the history of Scotland. This book traces the origins of the Clearances from the eighteenth century to their culmination in the crofting legislation of the 1880s. In considering both the terrible suffering of the Highland people as well as the stark choices that faced landowners during a period of rapid economic change, it shows how the Clearances were one of many 'attempted' solutions to the problem of how to maintain a population on marginal and infertile land, and were, in fact, part of a wider European movement of rural depopulation. In drawing attention away from the mythology to the hard facts of what actually happened, The Highland Clearances offers a balanced analysis of events which created a terrible scar on the Highland and Gaelic imagination.


Beyond Courage

Beyond Courage

Author: Robert Aros

Publisher: Shore Publishing

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780963870407

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Rarely does a book come along that is so absorbing that the reader cannot put the book down. Such a book is BEYOND COURAGE. Robert Aros, along with veteran writer Rob Ternan, has aptly recorded the action packed story of himself, his wife Margaret & their 17-year-old son Christian being shipwrecked & set adrift in a tiny rubber raft for 26 days in the South Pacific. They survived unbelievable odds as El Nino crazed seas, strange winds, fateful blunders & bumbling rescue efforts conspired to strip them of food, water & even hope itself. A family tale of conflict, survival, faith & love. REVIEWS: "it is definitely the type of book that once you start, you cannot put it down. The variety of emotions, fear, anxiety, love, & hope saturate every page. Definitely not your typical 'LOST AT SEA STORY', but a true adventure."--David Underwood. "I read the first chapter & was hooked. It pulled me right in. It was not overly wordy, & didn't beat around the bush, but got right into the action."--Carol Jackson, Librarian. "Terse honest account of an extraordinary human experience. It steers clear of sentimentality & heads straight for the stronger emotions, fear, desperation & ultimately joy."--Vivian Reed, Librarian. Shore Publishing, 239 Nieto Ave., Suite A, Long Beach, CA 90803. (800) 655-8689.


Feathers Floating Through Ember

Feathers Floating Through Ember

Author: Trinity Dunn

Publisher:

Published: 2021-12-19

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781737053941

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Finding himself stranded in the water after a devastating plane crash, Chris Grace helplessly watches the raft which holds is wife float out of his reach. Clinging to a stewardess's life-jacket to remain afloat, his life will be forever changed. When rescue comes in the form of an old wooden ship, he is forced to question the world around him, realizing over time that the storm that struck their airplane was no ordinary storm at all. Under the protection of the name she shares with a well-known duchess, Chris and Maria navigate their presence on the ship carefully while forming a plan to find his wife and return home. Adventure, mystery, and tragedy unfold as he sails the Pacific alongside an infamous world traveler. Along the way, he will have to face his inner demons and choose between the love he is bound to and the love he cannot control. Can he get them home? And if so, what will home mean after all they'd been through?


Seaworthy

Seaworthy

Author: T. R. Pearson

Publisher: Three Rivers Press

Published: 2007-06

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 030733595X

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Chronicles the unusual adventures and misadventures of eccentric extreme sportsman William Willis, known for taking lengthy, frequently ill-prepared rafting trips across the major oceans of the world in his sixties and seventies. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.