This book participates in the modern recovery of the memory of the long-forgotten relationship between Scotland and the Caribbean. Drawing on theoretical paradigms of world literature and transnationalism, it argues that Caribbean slavery profoundly shaped Scotland’s economic, social and cultural development, and draws out the implications for current debates on Scotland’s national narratives of identity. Eighteenth- to nineteenth-century Scottish writers are re-examined in this new light. Morris explores the ways that discourses of "improvement" in both Scotland and the Caribbean are mediated by the modes of pastoral and georgic which struggle to explain and contain the labour conditions of agricultural labourers, both free and enslaved. The ambivalent relationship of Scottish writers, including Robert Burns, to questions around abolition allows fresh perspectives on the era. Furthermore, Morris considers the origins of a hybrid Scottish-Creole identity through two nineteenth-century figures - Robert Wedderburn and Mary Seacole. The final chapter moves forward to consider the implications for post-devolution (post-referendum) Scotland. Underpinning this investigation is the conviction that collective memory is a key feature which shapes behaviour and beliefs in the present; the recovery of the memory of slavery is performed here in the interests of social justice in the present.

This book participates in the modern recovery of the memory of the long-forgotten relationship between Scotland and the Caribbean. Drawing on theoretical paradigms of world literature and transnationalism, it argues that Caribbean slavery profoundly shaped Scotland’s economic, social and cultural development, and draws out the implications for current debates on Scotland’s national narratives of identity. Eighteenth- to nineteenth-century Scottish writers are re-examined in this new light. Morris explores the ways that discourses of "improvement" in both Scotland and the Caribbean are mediated by the modes of pastoral and georgic which struggle to explain and contain the labour conditions of agricultural labourers, both free and enslaved. The ambivalent relationship of Scottish writers, including Robert Burns, to questions around abolition allows fresh perspectives on the era. Furthermore, Morris considers the origins of a hybrid Scottish-Creole identity through two nineteenth-century figures - Robert Wedderburn and Mary Seacole. The final chapter moves forward to consider the implications for post-devolution (post-referendum) Scotland. Underpinning this investigation is the conviction that collective memory is a key feature which shapes behaviour and beliefs in the present; the recovery of the memory of slavery is performed here in the interests of social justice in the present.

Edges of Transatlantic Commerce in the Long Eighteenth Century examines and challenges the boundaries of the Atlantic in the eighteenth century, with a particular focus on commerce. Commerce as a keyword encompasses a wide range of documented and undocumented encounters that invoke topics such as shared or conflicting ideas of value, affective experiences of the emerging global system, and development of national economies, as well as their opponents. By investigating what gets exchanged, created, or obscured on the peripheries of transatlantic commercial relations and geography in the eighteenth century, the chapters in this collection reimagine the edge as a liminal space with a potential for an alternative historical and aesthetic knowledge. To ground this inquiry in a more material dimension, the chapters engage specifically with what is being exchanged, sold, or communicated across the Atlantic by exploring ideas that are being shaped, concealed, undermined, or exploited through intricate exchanges. With its contributions from multiple contexts and disciplinary perspectives, Edges of Transatlantic Commerce offers insights into relatively neglected aspects of the transatlantic world to cultivate the value that the edges allow us to conceive.

This book shows that addressing crowded halls from Ayr to Aberdeen, Frederick Douglass gained the confidence, mastered the skills and fashioned the distinctive voice that transformed him as a campaigner.

Charts Scottish Romanticism's significant contribution to the making of collective memory in the transatlantic worldOffers an in-depth examination of Scottish Romantic literary ideas on memory and their influence among various cultures in the British Atlantic, broken down into distinct writing modes (memorials, travel memoir, slave narrative, colonial policy paper, emigrant fiction) and contexts (pre- and post-Revolution America, French-Canadian cultural nationalism, the slavery debate, immigration and colonial settlement).Looks at familiar Scottish writers (Walter Scott, John Galt) in new ways, while introducing less familiar ones (Anne Grant, Thomas Pringle).Brings Scottish Romantic literary studies into new engagements with other fields (such as transatlantic and memory studies).Opens up new dialogues between Scottish literature and culture and other literatures and cultures (for example, French-Canadian, Black Diaspora, Indigenous).Scots, who were at the vanguard of British colonial expansion in North America in the Romantic period, believed that their own nation had undergone an unprecedented transformation in only a short span of time. Scottish writers became preoccupied with collective memory, its powerful role in shaping group identity as well as its delicate fragility. McNeil reveals why we must add collective memory to the list of significant contributions Scots made to a culture of modernity.

The first applied research volume in Scottish Romanticism, this collection foregrounds the concept of progress as 'improvement' as a constitutive theme of Scottish writing during the long eighteenth century. It explores improvement as the animating principle behind Scotland’s post-1707 project of modernization, a narrative both shaped and reflected in the literary sphere. It represents a vital moment in Romantic studies, as a 'four-nations' interrogation of the British context reaches maturity. Equally, the volume contributes to a central concern in the study of Scottish culture, amplifying a critical synthesis of Romanticism and Enlightenment. The conceptual motif of improvement allows an illumination of the boundaries (and beyond) of conventional notions of Romanticism, tracing its long, evolving imbrication with Enlightenment in Scotland. Exploring the holistic treatment of improvement in Scottish literature, chapter-studies include work on agricultural improvement and processes of commercialization, polite cultural renewal and the cotton trade, an expanding print culture and spirituality in death rituals. Taken as a whole, this amounts to an interdisciplinary re-consideration of the central role of improvement in Scottish cultural history of the long eighteenth century, of interest to a wide range of scholars, reflecting the vitality of the exchange between Enlightenment and Romanticism in Scotland.

Moving between Britain and Jamaica this book reconstructs the world of commerce, consumption and cultivation sustained through an extended engagement with the business of slavery. Transatlantic slavery was both shaping of and shaped by the dynamic networks of family that established Britain’s Caribbean empire. Tracing the activities of a single extended family – the Hibberts – this book explores how slavery impacted on the social, cultural, economic and political landscape of Britain. It is a history of trade, colonisation, enrichment and the tangled web of relations that gave meaning to the transatlantic world. The Hibberts’s trans-generational story imbricates the personal and the political, the private and the public, the local and the global. It is both the intimate narrative of a family and an analytical frame through which to explore Britain’s history and legacies of slavery.