STARTING as she means to go on, with a dedication "to the best King we never had", Hill gives us a history which is spiritedly, unabashedly engagé. Not for her the cheerless orthodoxy of Whig History on the one hand or the revisionist zeal of the mo
dern academics on the other: readers after dispassionate analysis will want to look elsewhere. And fair enough: there are sweeping judgments here that will make the serious scholar's hair stand on end; this certainly shouldn't be the only book on Jacobitism that anybody reads. It's a terrific read, though, and more than that, it gives us a clearer sense than we've generally had of Jacobitism as a movement rather than a series of rebellions. Hill takes in a host of characters presumably lost on the margins of previous histories: the exiles, the English supporters and, above all, the women.
The Harbours of Elie Bay by Archie Rennie (E&EHS, £10) IT WAS in 1582 that Thomas Dishington approached the Convention of Royal Burghs for funds towards the "upbigging of the haven called Ely". An upgraded Elie would, the Convention conceded, make a "very commodious harbery … for all schippis and boittis safity in stormes of wether". By the end of the 18th century, the Rev William Pairman could report that facilities at Elie were "excellent" and that it was "the resort of more wind-bound vessels than any other harbour, perhaps, in Scotland". This absorbing history follows the shifting fortunes of one of Fife's leading ports from Pictish times to the present day: it's a colourful and often surprising story.
The full article contains 276 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
