My interest in the archaeology of the Scottish Highlands began long before I had any formal training in the subject. Growing up on the eastern fringes of the southern Highlands, close to Loch Lomond, it was not hard stumble across ruined buildings, old field boundaries, and other traces of everyday life in the past. This is especially true if you spend much time, as I have done, climbing the nearby mountains and walking and driving through the various glens that give access into the Highlands. At the time, I had no real understanding of these remains, simply accepting them as being built and old. After studying archaeology for a few years at the University of Glasgow, itself only a short commute from the area where I grew up, I became acutely aware that I still had no real understanding of these - miliar, yet enigmatic, buildings and fields. This and a growing interest in Scotland’s historical archaeology drove me to take several courses on the subject of rural settlement studies. These courses allowed me to place what I now knew to be houses, barns, mills, shieling (transhumance) settlements, rig-and-furrow cultivation, and other related remains in history. Overwhelmingly, they seemed to date from the period of the last 300 years. I also began to understand how they all worked together as component parts of daily rural life in the past.

The freeholding pioneer is a powerful image in settlement history - Tenants in Time tells a different story. Tenancy, though relegated to the periphery by the liberal idealization of ownership, was a common and vital part of the economy and society. Against a background of international land agitation and using an inter-disciplinary approach, Catharine Wilson looks at life as a tenant farmer, providing new insights into family strategies, land markets, and the growth of liberalism. Using evidence from across Upper Canada she shows how tenancy transformed the landscape and tied old and new settlers together in a continuum of mutual dependence that was essential to settlement, capital creation, and social mobility. Her analysis of customary rights reveals a landlord-tenant relationship - and a concept of ownership - more complex and flexible than previously understood. Landlords, from ordinary farmers to absentee aristocrats, are also part of the story and the much-criticized clergy reserves take a positive role. An intimate exploration of Cramahe Township follows tenants over the generations as they supported their families and combined liberal ideas with household-centered ways. From aggregate statistics to individual human dramas, Tenants in Time unravels the life of the tenant farmer in a wonderfully documented, engaging, and compelling argument.

Each title in the Australian Essential series is set out in a similar way for ease of reference. Chapters open with a checklist and then go on to focus on 'Essential' issues, looking at examination topics, exploring areas of debate and providing insights into difficult areas. The books are ideal revision aids for students.