Scottish military offensives against England from 1369 were largely the product of government policy, were launched with careful timing and, in the reign of Robert II, involved close co-operation with France. They succeeded militarily, encouraging the Scots to the point where they were willing to engage in attacks on England beyond the ambition of their French allies. However, diplomatic gains fell well short of forcing English recognition of Scottish independence. Hopes of achieving this by military means were ended in the reign of Robert III when the Scots were heavily defeated in 1402. War was not solely fought with political objectives in mind or other 'rational' factors such as the quest for financial gain. The Scots went to war for emotive reasons too, such as hatred of the English, the search for renown and the sheer enjoyment of fighting. All these factors inspired the Scots to launch a series of bloody, brutal and ultimately futile offensives against England.

25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION • From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road: an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, Blood Meridian traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving. Look for Cormac McCarthy's latest bestselling novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.

"It was rough killer country. For months the border had been smoldering with hate. A gold-crazed gang was at work. Mexican was pitted against Texan and the countryside was an inferno of gunfire and bloodshed. Into this snakes' nest rode one man--Walt Slade, Texas Ranger. His mission was to bring justice and peace to the Border. But as the Ranger set out to find the hidden haunt of the vicious bandits, he became marked a target for death."--

It was rough killer country. For months the border had been smoldering with hate. A gold-crazed gang was at work. Mexican was pitted against Texan and the countryside was an inferno of gunfire and bloodshed.

In the last decades of the thirteenth century the British Isles appeared to be on the point of unified rule, dominated by the lordship, law and language of the English. However by 1400 Britain and Ireland were divided between the warring kings of England and Scotland, and peoples still starkly defined by race and nation. Why did the apparent trends towards a single royal ruler, a single elite and a common Anglicised world stop so abruptly after 1300? And what did the resulting pattern of distinct nations and extensive borderlands contribute to the longer-term history of the British Isles? In this innovative analysis of a critical period in the history of the British Isles, Michael Brown addresses these fundamental questions and shows how the national identities underlying the British state today are a continuous legacy of these years. Using a chronological structure to guide the reader through the key periods of the era, this book also identifies and analyses the following dominant themes throughout: - the changing nature of kingship and sovereignty and their links to wars of conquest - developing ideas of community and identity - key shifts in the nature of aristocratic societies across the isles - the European context, particularly the roots and course of the Hundred Years War This is essential reading for undergraduates studying the history of late Medieval Britain or Europe, but will also be of great interest for anyone who wishes to understand the continuing legacy of the late medieval period in Britain.

In the summer after the Anglo-Irish Agreement, when tension was high in Northern Ireland, Colm Tóibín walked along the border from Derry to Newry. Bad Blood is a stark and evocative account of this journey through fear and hatred, and a report on ordinary life and the legacy of history in a bleak and desolate landscape. Tóibín describes the rituals – the marches, the funerals, the demonstrations – observed by both communities along the border, and listens to the stories which haunt both sides. With sympathy and insight Bad Blood captures the intimacy of life along one of the most contested strips of land in Western Europe.