Essays and Journalism, Volume 3

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Naomi Mitchison was born in Edinburgh, and from at least the late 1930s onwards she was not only passionately interested in Scottish landscape and history but involved in Scottish politics and current affairs. A first glance at the pieces collected here might suggest that her Scotland comprised only the West Highlands which she knew so well. Much of her journalism stems from her activity as a member of such public bodies as Argyll County Council and the advisory Highland Panel: the problems she encountered, and helped to solve, find their way into her writing. But she has a wider vision than that would imply. She is concerned, particularly in later years, with Scotland's place as a small nation, still at the time governed from Westminster, in a world where global politics and finance - NATO and oil - seem to hold almost unquestioned power (but she asks the questions) Scotland's identity is indeed an overriding concern. As early as the 1940s and as late as the 1970s, Mitchison reiterates the virtues of 'the Highland way of life', an almost indefinable ethos which she returns to again and again. Her championship of this idea can lead her into paths which are perhaps unexpected, given her general support of progress and scientific advance. As in the Carradale volume, it has seemed a good idea to group the pieces by topic, with a certain inevitable crossover arising from Mitchison's digressive, irrepressible writing style.