'Despite the difficult relationship between Scotland and alcohol, Scottish historians have largely ignored what has gone on in pubs, Anthony Cooke has put this right with a splendid book that seeks to relate pubs, drinking and temperance to the main themes of modern Scottish history. The book displays a profound knowledge of its subject and the experience of reading it is as satisfying as consuming a pint of cask-conditioned IPA!'
Ewen Cameron, University of Edinburgh

A social history of Scottish drinking and drinking establishments

What did Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Dorothy Wordsworth, James Hogg and Robert Southey have in common? They all toured Scotland and left accounts of their experiences in Scottish hotels, taverns, inns, public houses and ale houses. Similarly, poets and writers from Robert Burns and Walter Scott to Ian Rankin and Irvine Welsh have left vivid descriptions of the pleasures and pains of Scottish drinking places.

This fascinating book examines continuity and change in the functions of Scottish drinking places, their use as a public space for business transactions and work rituals, to celebrate life rituals such as birth, marriage and death, for cultural activities, for sporting activities, for tourism and for 'underground' activities such as crime and prostitution.

These and other historical issues such as temperance, together with contemporary issues, like the liberalisation of licensing laws and the changing nature of Scottish pubs, are discussed. In a series of interviews with present-day licencees across Scotland, the author examines the traditional Scottish pub and asks whether it will survive in the modern era.

Anthony Cooke is a retired Senior Lecturer in Continuing Education from the University of Dundee and was Historical Consultant to Historic Scotland on the restoration of Stanley Mills, Perthshire. He has published books and articles on the Scottish cotton industry, on Glasgow West India merchants and on popular enlightenment. He co-edited the five-volume series Modern Scottish History: 1707 to the Present (1998).

Cover image: Horseshoe Bar, Glasgow © Crown Copyright
reproduced courtesy of Historic Scotland. [...]

Cover design: Kit Foster

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