The 'Dynamic' Highlands that Emerged in the 100 Years before Culloden

Description

The little-known writings of a 17th-century scholar have helped to illuminate the Highlands as “dynamic and connected to the world” in the 100 years before Culloden, a historian has claimed.

By Alison Campsie

Wednesday, 29th September 2021, 4:55 am, The Scotsman

Professor David Worthington, head of the Centre of History at University of the Highlands and Islands, said he wanted to “challenge the assumption” the Highlands existed in a vacuum before the 18th century and was sealed off from the rest of the world.

The professor draws on the manuscripts of Reverend James Fraser, a Gaelic-speaking scholar, traveller and minister from Phopachy near Inverness, to show a “cosmopolitan and scholarly” breed of Highlander of the time.