Historians of early modern Scotland arguably have a problem—or at least a fairly profound challenge: how to assess the significance of phenomena in a small country at the northern fringes of Europe. This is perhaps less awkward for scholars working on the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, but the seventeenth century perhaps offers particular difficulties. The response has sometimes involved looking far beyond Scotland's borders, in terms of international trade and the Scottish diaspora, or, more provocatively, at “British” history, a problematic and not always very well-executed move that is probably now falling out of favor. The response signaled by Scotland in the Age of Two Revolutions, however, is rather different, and it might be thought to be more suggestive than successful, and not without its drawbacks.

As the editors, Sharon Adams and Julian Goodare, make clear, this collection, which is dominated by postdoctoral scholars, emerged from a determination to place Scotland's covenanting revolution in a longer context, and from a concern that British—or at least Anglo-Scottish—approaches have led to “biased history” (1). Their intention, therefore, was to move away from an Anglocentric time frame (between 1603 and 1707), and to examine “how seventeenth-century Scotland would look if we focused on things that the Scots themselves wanted and chose to do” (1–2). The result is eleven essays on a diverse range of topics beyond Goodare's direct focus on the “revolution” of 1638. These include essays with geographical focus, on, for example the attempt to create a new administrative entity—the “middle shires”—across lands (the marches) that had once been divided by a border (Anna Groundwater), as well as treatments of the Highlands and Isles (Sherrilynn Theiss, Danielle McCormack). They essays also include contributions to the history of political administration, on terms of the role of Scottish bishops before 1638 (Sally Tuckett), and of the Scottish Company within political life after 1696 (Douglas Watt), and the nature of “everyday” government in the Williamite era (Laura Rayner), as well as on the understandable but unfortunate impact of Charles II's allies from the Battle of Worcester after 1660 (Maurice Lee Jr). A third theme involves intellectual history, on, for example, “republican tendencies” among covenanters (Sharon Adams), the political thought of Restoration covenanters (Caroline Erskine), and the role of state oaths during the revolution of 1688–89 (Alasdair Raffe).

What emerges from these essays is certainly not without interest. These are neglected and poorly understood topics, and the focus on them is certainly welcome, and new insights are certainly provided. We learn interesting things about localism and the “local mentality” (48) within Highland communities and about the conditional nature of the Scottish decision to proclaim Charles II as king in 1649. Indeed, Adams's essay—perhaps the pick of the bunch in the opinion of this reviewer—detects “tantalising hints” of new political ideas in mid-seventeenth century Scotland, (114) and it suggests that the Scots successfully divorced the principle of monarchical government from the exercise of monarchical authority.

For the most part, however, the conclusions are somewhat underwhelming. At times they might be thought to be a little predictable, for example, those about the legal and jurisdictional hurdles that militated against cross-border reform and how the Scots were treated during the Cromwellian era. Likewise Goodare's insistence that the Scottish revolution really does merit the name: few would probably disagree. Some essays merely offer modest modifications of existing interpretations, as does Watt's treatment of the Scottish “opposition” party. In other essays there is a notable hesitancy, and perhaps even lack of clarity, as with the discussion of religious influences on Highland allegiance during the civil wars. More often, there is a danger that what emerges involves a less-than-convincing case for why Scotland matters, or for wherein its significance lies. Very often, therefore, we learn about problems and failures, or at least of things that did not quite happen, as with the emergence of a powerful Scottish council after 1689. Erskine, for example, ultimately concludes that Restoration covenanters are really not very important, and that they were, in effect, little more than a “dead end” (172).

Part of the problem, perhaps, involves the way these essays tend to be framed and the wider state of Scottish history. Some might argue, therefore, that historians of Scotland have never quite done enough in terms of establishing the narrative upon which analytical work necessarily rests, notwithstanding the wonderful work of scholars like David Stevenson, to whom this collection is dedicated. Too often, therefore, the essays need to cover the basics as well as to attempt unique interpretations. But it can also be argued that the analysis is too rarely leavened by sure-footed historiographical engagement or conceptual awareness. Erskine's chapter on covenanter thought rests on a somewhat odd engagement with the historiography regarding intellectual history, in which it is “conventionally expected that political theory should have universal applications,” and in which Quentin Skinner's most important work, Foundations of Modern Political Thought (1978), is considered “recent” (168). Similarly, it is not really sufficient to offer underdeveloped claims that Allan Macinnes's assertions about Highland violence in Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603–1788 (1996) is “unlikely” to be correct (119). In the end, too many of the essays seem underdeveloped in one way or another and in ways that do not really make Scottish history seem very urgent or relevant.

This is not to say that Scottish history can achieve wider relevance only by means of a British or more broadly international focus. But it is to suggest that it needs to be much richer, conceptually and historiographically, than these essays tend to be, and perhaps more comparative. At their best, the essays gesture in this last direction, but as Goodare's misstep over England's “Grand Remonstrance” suggests (86), there is still some way to go on this front.