A landmark study which reconsiders in fresh and illuminating ways the classic themes of the nation's history since the sixteenth century, as well as a number of new topics which are only now receiving detailed attention. Places the Scottish experience firmly in an international historical experience.

Over the last three decades major advances in research and scholarship have transformed understanding of the Scottish past. In this landmark study some of the most eminent writers on the subject, together with emerging new talents, have combined to produce a large-scale volume which reconsiders in fresh and illuminating ways the classic themes of the nation's history since the sixteenth century as well as a number of new topics which are only now receiving detailed attention. Such major themes as the Reformation, the Union of 1707, the Scottish Enlightenment, clearances, industrialisation, empire, emigration, and the Great War are approached from novel and fascinating perspectives, but so too are such issues as the Scottish environment, myth, family, criminality, the literary tradition, and Scotland's contemporary history. All chapters contain expert syntheses of current knowledge, but their authors also stand back and reflect critically on the questions which still remain unanswered, the issues which generate dispute and controversy, and sketch out where appropriate the agenda for future research. The Handbook also places the Scottish experience firmly into an international historical perspective with a considerable focus on the age-old emigration of the Scottish people, the impact of successive waves of immigrants to Scotland, and the nation's key role within the British Empire. The overall result is a vibrant and stimulating review of modern Scottish history: essential reading for students and scholars alike.

The Bible was, by any measure, the most important book in early modern England. It preoccupied the scholarship of the era, and suffused the idioms of literature and speech. Political ideas rode on its interpretation and deployed its terms. It was intricately related to the project of natural philosophy. And it was central to daily life at all levels of society from parliamentarian to preacher, from the 'boy that driveth the plough', famously invoked by Tyndale, to women across the social scale. It circulated in texts ranging from elaborate folios to cheap catechisms; it was mediated in numerous forms, as pictures, songs, and embroideries, and as proverbs, commonplaces, and quotations. Bringing together leading scholars from a range of fields, The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, 1530-1700 explores how the scriptures served as a generative motor for ideas, and a resource for creative and political thought, as well as for domestic and devotional life. Sections tackle the knotty issues of translation, the rich range of early modern biblical scholarship, Bible dissemination and circulation, the changing political uses of the Bible, literary appropriations and responses, and the reception of the text across a range of contexts and media. Where existing scholarship focuses, typically, on Tyndale and the King James Bible of 1611, The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in England, 1530-1700 goes further, tracing the vibrant and shifting landscape of biblical culture in the two centuries following the Reformation.