The Literary Politics of Scottish Devolution:
Voice, Class, Nation

This research monograph is a cultural history and political critique of Scottish devolution. Considering a range of archival materials and critical theories, it explores how questions of ‘voice’, language and identity featured in debates leading to the new Scottish Parliament in 1999. Tracing both the ‘dream’ of cultural empowerment and the ‘grind’ of electoral strategy, it reconstructs the influence of magazines such as Scottish International, Radical Scotland and Edinburgh Review, and sets the fiction of William McIlvanney, James Kelman, Irvine Welsh, A.L. Kennedy and James Robertson within a radically altered picture of devolved Scotland.

A major contribution to our understanding of Scottish cultural politics. In a rich and perceptive study, Scott Hames examines the disjunction between the literary Dream and the political Grind over the past half century.
- Colin Kidd, University of St Andrews

Brilliant, trenchant, at times disconcerting, Scott Hames’s critical history of devolution offers an exemplary analysis of the interplay between cultural nationalism and practical politics. It’s essential reading for anyone who cares about the current state of Scotland.
- Ian Duncan, University of California

The introduction to the book is available as a free sample chapter.

REVIEWS

One of the most original and arresting studies of our political culture written for 10 years. It is a powerful deconstruction of the political myths that made modern Scotland and a compelling reassessment of Holyrood’s — frequently miscast — institutional origins. (The Herald)

A ground-breaking contribution to the fields of both Scottish literary studies and cultural-political history. (Scottish Historical Review)

An outstanding critical tour-de-force, and very timely too, as it captures and crystallises an important chapter in the history of Scottish nationalism at the eve of a new historical phase. (Review of English Studies)

Hames is challenging the belief that the affirmation of Scotland’s cultural selfhood precedes not just politics, but criticism. (London Review of Books)

A brilliant book that both gives an original new account of the campaign for devolution and raises difficult but productive questions about demands for greater Scottish autonomy today. (Political Quarterly)

A ground-breaking reassessment … approaching contemporary Scottish culture in radically new, irreverent terms. A necessary weapon for anyone hoping to escape, reinvent, or transform the cultural state of the nation. As such, it stands as one of the most significant Scottish academic outputs of the present century. (Études écossaises)

Other reviews:
Scottish Literary Review, Studies in Scottish Literature, Miscelánea, Drouth, International Review of Scottish Studies, Journal of American, British and Canadian Studies, Morning Star, Scots Whay Hae! (podcast), Tribune (interview)