Peatbogs, Plague and Potatoes

The environment is not a neutral background to human struggles for power and profit. Scotland's past is affected by these non-human factors as much as anything that man has done. The dramatic environmental consequences of volcanic eruptions, floods or drought are not the only ones to effect our lives and our history. "Climate Change, Peatbogs, Plague and Potatoes" makes Scotland's environmental history easy to understand by summarising the course of human interaction with the non-human environment. The Acts of Union, Culloden and the Highland Clearances are all human events that have all have caused unprecedented impact on the environment still being felt today. As farms, fields and hedges have been replaced by factories, roads and canals Scotland, has been transformed as have the lives of its people. This history charts Scotland's road to modernity and the environment's influential role within it.

Emma Wood Emma Wood was born in Yorkshire, and after spells in East Anglia and Norfolk, she moved to Ross-shire in 1987. She is the author of Notes from the North, explaining her experiences as an Englishwoman living in North Scotland. Emma teaches English and is a freelance journalist.