One of the most pressing concerns facing modern historians is the need to connect our research with audiences and readerships beyond the academy.
In part, this reflects pressure from government, which through various assessment exercises and funding schemes is increasingly demanding that scholars of all kinds demonstrate ‘engagement’ with, and ‘impact’ on, wider society. It is also rooted, however, in a growing trend within academic circles themselves towards recognising ‘public history’ as a legitimate, indeed vital part of the scholarly mission.
History, after all, is central to so many people’s understanding of the world around them, and it would not take an especially in-depth survey of the 20th and 21st centuries to confirm that bad history, when left unchallenged, can have serious consequences.
The need for academic historians to get stuck into the public realm is perhaps especially pressing in Scotland’s case.The ‘gatekeepers’ of public engagement, especially TV companies and large-scale publishing houses, have long been wary of carrying material on Scottish history because, crudely, they do not think it will make a profit.This has resulted in an arid public presence dominated on the one hand by sporadic and often rather twee TV documentaries,
