Alistair Moffat

Alistair Moffat’s journey, from the Scottish islands and Scotland, to the English coast, Wales, Cornwall and Ireland, ignores national boundaries to reveal the rich fabric of culture and history of Celtic Britain which still survives today. This is a vividly told, dramatic and enlightening account of the oral history, legends and battles of a people whose past stretches back many hundred of years. The Sea Kingdoms is a story of great tragedies, ancient myths and spectacular beauty.

The Story of Celtic Britain and Ireland

The Sea Kingdoms

“A brisk and accessible guide to a thousand years of reiving and rivalry in the Highlands.” —The Scotsman

The Highland Clans

Only one period in history is immediately, indelibly and uniquely linked to the whole area of the Scottish and English Border country, and that is the time of the Reivers. Whenever anyone mentions 'Reiver', no-one hesitates to add 'Border'. It is an inextricable association, and rightly so. Nowhere else in Britain in the modern era, or indeed in Europe, did civil order break down over such a wide area, or for such a long time. For more than a century the hoof-beats of countless raiding parties drummed over the border. From Dumfriesshire to the high wastes of East Cumbria, from Roxburghshire to Redesdale, from the lonely valley of Liddesdale to the fortress city of Carlisle, swords and spears spoke while the law remained silent. Fierce family loyalty counted for everything while the rules of nationality counted for nothing. The whole range of the Cheviot Hills, its watershed ridges and the river valleys which flowed out of them became the landscape of larceny while Maxwells, Grahams, Fenwicks, Carletons, Armstrongs and Elliots rode hard and often for plunder. These were the Riding Times and in modern European history, they have no parallel. This book tells the remarkable story of the Reivers and how they made the Borders.

The Story of the Border Reivers

The Reivers

Alexander McCall Smith

James Robertson

James Crawford

Kathleen Jamie

Experience a new history of Scotland told through its places. Writers Kathleen Jamie, Alexander McCall Smith, Alistair Moffat, James Robertson and James Crawford pick twenty-five buildings to tell the story of the nation.Travelling across the country, from abandoned islands and lonely glens to the heart of our modern cities, these five authors seek out the diverse narrative of the Scottish people. Follow Kathleen Jamie as she searches for the traces of our first family hearths in the Cairngorms and makes a midsummer journey to Shetland to meet the unlikely new inhabitants of an Iron Age broch. Tour the wondrous and macabre Surgeons' Hall with Alexander McCall Smith, or walk with him over sacred ground to Iona's ancient Abbey. Join Alistair Moffat as he discovers a lost whisky village in the wilds of Strathconon, and climbs up through the vertiginous layers of history in Edinburgh Castle. Accompany James Robertson as he goes from the standing stones of Callanish to the humble cottage of Hugh MacDiarmid - via the engineering colossus of the Forth Rail Bridge. And journey with James Crawford from a packed crowd in Hampden Park, to an off-the-grid eco-bothy on the Isle of Eigg.Who Built Scotland is a landmark exploration of Scotland's social, political and cultural histories. Moving from Neolithic families, exiled hermits and ambitious royal dynasties to highland shieling girls, peasant poets, Enlightenment philosophers and iconoclastic artists, it places our people, our ideas and our passions at the heart of our architecture and archaeology. This is the remarkable story how we have shaped our buildings and how our buildings, in turn, have shaped us.

A History of the Nation in Twenty-Five Buildings

Who Built Scotland

A geological and sociological tour of prehistoric Scotland cites DNA studies that offer insight into how the region was shaped by powerful Ice Age elements, discussing the influences of such contributors as the Celts, the Picts, and the Gaelic monarchy. By the author of The Sea Kingdoms.

The Story of Scotland Before History

Before Scotland

"In The Hidden Ways, Alistair Moffat traverses the lost paths of Scotland - its Roman roads tramped by armies, its warpaths and pilgrim routes, drove roads and rail roads, turnpikes, flyways and sea-roads - in a bid to understand how our history has left its mark upon our landscape. Alistair's travels along the hidden ways reveal not only the searing beauty and magic of the Scottish landscape, but open up a new means of understanding our past: in retracing the forgotten paths, he charts a powerful, surprising and moving history of Scotland through the unremembered lives who have moved through it."--Publisher's description.

Scotland's Forgotten Roads

The Hidden Ways

Here, guided by Jim Wilson's researches into Scottish genetic history, he (Alistair Moffat) tackles on the of the biggest stories possible: linking up the story of the earliest Scots to the earliest men... He is wonderfully able to communicate the epic elements of the story - which matters because that's precisely what man's survival has been' - David Robinson, The Scotsman 'I've been enjoyably immersed in it since it arrived on my doorstep last week...wonderfully readable. This is no dry, academic account, but it's the most fascinating and thought-provoking treatment of interlocking aspects of our early history I've yet to read. I recommend it whole-heartedly' - Colin Will, poet and publisher 'Alistair Moffat explores the history of where we all came from, with the help of new DNA science' - BBC Radio Scotland 'In The Scots: A Genetic Journey, historian and broadcaster Alistair Moffat taps into the latest advances in DNA science to find that our origins lie not only deep in the mists of time, but right off the map... with the help of historical geneticist Jim Wilson, he finds that, post-Ice Age, Scotland's earliest settlers walked here from what is now Spain' - Jim Gilchrist, Scotsman 'In The Scots: A Genetic Journey, Alistair Moffat and James F. Wilson explore the history that is printed in our genes, and in a remarkable new approach come to some fascinating conclusions about who we are and where we came from' - The Orcadian 'The fusion of science and the physical history - like an abandoned croft - allows people to trace their Scots ancestry with precision' - Sunday Herald 'The Scots: A Genetic Journey, a book and radio series based on Moffat and Wilson's research, concludes that all Scots are immigrants by descent. Britain as a whole is a mongrel nation' - Julian Baggini 'Skillfully written, weaving together genetics, archaeology, history, and topics of interest like red hair ' - James Honeychuck on Amazon History has always mattered to Scots, and rarely more so than now at the outset of a new century, with a new census appearing in 2011 and after more than ten years of a new parliament. An almost limitless archive of our history lies hidden inside our bodies and we carry the ancient story of Scotland around with us. The mushrooming of genetic studies, of DNA analysis, is rewriting our history in spectacular fashion. In The Scots: A Genetic Journey, Alistair Moffat explores the history that is printed on our genes, and in a remarkable new approach, uncovers the detail of where we are from, who we are and in so doing colour vividly a DNA map of Scotland.

A Genetic Journey

The Scots

‘Alistair Moffat’s Bannockburn is a pacy account of the days leading up to the battle’ - Saturday Herald ‘A carefully considered account of a well-trodden historical event, Moffat enlightens and educates with an up-to-date interpretation of a battle firmly cemented in Scottish history’ - Scottish Field ‘Mr Moffat’s account of the duel between Bruce and de Bohun is totally gripping and he is particularly enthralling about the councils of war onthe eve of the second day’s battle’ - Country Life From the Ice Age to the recent Scottish Referendum, historian and author Alistair Moffat explores the history of the Scottish nation. As well as focusing on key moments in the nation’s history such as the Battle of Bannockburn and the Jacobite Risings, Moffat also features other episodes in history that are perhaps less well documented. From prehistoric timber halls to inventions and literature, Moffat’s tale explores the drama of battle, change, loss and invention interspersed with the lives of ordinary Scottish folk, the men and women who defined a nation.

A History from Earliest Times

Scotland

The Highland Clans 1stEdition by Moffat, Alistair published by Thames & Hudson

A History of the Mislaid, Misplaced and Misunderstood

Scotland?s Forgotten Past

Arthur and the lost kingdoms

The Holy Men of the Hebrides

In Search of Angels

a history

Tuscany

A Year in the Valley

Secret History of Here

Ian H. Witten

Ian H.. Witten

Timothy C. Bell

Timothy C Bell

Timothy C.. Bell

"This book is the Bible for anyone who needs to manage large data collections. It's required reading for our search gurus at Infoseek. The authors have done an outstanding job of incorporating and describing the most significant new research in information retrieval over the past five years into this second edition." Steve Kirsch, Cofounder, Infoseek Corporation "The new edition of Witten, Moffat, and Bell not only has newer and better text search algorithms but much material on image analysis and joint image/text processing. If you care about search engines, you need this book: it is the only one with full details of how they work. The book is both detailed and enjoyable; the authors have combined elegant writing with top-grade programming." Michael Lesk, National Science Foundation "The coverage of compression, file organizations, and indexing techniques for full text and document management systems is unsurpassed. Students, researchers, and practitioners will all benefit from reading this book." Bruce Croft, Director, Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval at the University of Massachusetts In this fully updated second edition of the highly acclaimed Managing Gigabytes, authors Witten, Moffat, and Bell continue to provide unparalleled coverage of state-of-the-art techniques for compressing and indexing data. Whatever your field, if you work with large quantities of information, this book is essential reading--an authoritative theoretical resource and a practical guide to meeting the toughest storage and access challenges. It covers the latest developments in compression and indexing and their application on the Web and in digital libraries. It also details dozens of powerful techniques supported by mg, the authors' own system for compressing, storing, and retrieving text, images, and textual images. mg's source code is freely available on the Web.

Compressing and Indexing Documents and Images, Second Edition

Managing Gigabytes

Based on exciting new research involving the most wide-ranging sampling of DNA ever made in Britain, Alistair Moffat, author of the bestselling 'The Scots: A Genetic Journey', shows how all of us who live on these islands are immigrants.

The British

Only one period in history is immediately linked to the whole area of the Scottish and English Border country, and that is the time of the Reivers. Whenever anyone mentions Reiver, no-one hesitates to add Border. This book tells the tale of a land that was a no-man's-land but a land over which blood was shed on both sides of an invisible border.

Alistair Moffat uncovers the mystery and myths surrounding one of british histories most enigmatic figures.

Alistair Moffat

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