- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Birlinn Ltd; First Edition edition (1 Oct 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1841589071
- ISBN-13: 978-1841589077
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 259,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Who Owns Scotland? How did they get it? What happened to all the common land in Scotland? Has the Scottish Parliament made any difference? Can we get our common good land back? In The Poor Had No Lawyers, Andy Wightman, author of Who Owns Scotland, updates the statistics of landownership in Scotland and takes the reader on a voyage of discovery into Scotland's history to find out how and why landowners got their hands on the millions of acres of land that were once held in common. He tells the untold story of how Scotland's legal establishment and politicians managed to appropriate land through legal fixes. From Robert the Bruce to Willie Ross and from James V to Donald Dewar, land has conferred political and economic power. Have attempts to redistribute this power more equitably made any difference and what are the full implications of the recent debt fuelled housing bubble? For all those with an interest in urban and rural land in Scotland, The Poor Had No Lawyers provides a fascinating and illuminating analysis of one the most important political questions in Scotland - who owns Scotland and how did they get it?
About the Author
Andy Wightman was born in Dundee and gained a degree in forestry at Aberdeen University. He has worked as a ghillie, environmental scientist, and an environmental campaigner before becoming a self-employed writer and researcher in 1993. He is the author of several books and a prominent analyst and critic of land reform process. He lives in Edinburgh.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a refreshing, original, challenging and important analysis of contemporary Scotland, its past, present and future.
It will challenge many of your most central assumptions. That land ownership and land reform are about rural areas. That this has nothing to say about Glasgow and Edinburgh. That Scotland is an egalitarian country, unlike class-divided, hiearchical England. That the days of feudalism and power acting with impunity are long over.
Wightman is an expert on land ownership, but he and this book are about much more. In short, what he is addressing is how power is exercised in Scotland; in our past and to this day. The forces of reaction - from feudal barons to the present day 'great and good' constantly usurp others rights, taking from the commons and individuals.
And what Wightman beautifully challenges - in detail - is the Scots blindness to this because of our old comfort story of being an egalitarian nation. What this has masked is that Scots dont want to face up to issues of power, privilege, abuse and exclusion. Yes we love going on about some mythical wrong done to a group in the far distant past, but real misuses of power - involving complexity, the abuse of the law and due process - well forget it.
This is an important book on every level, and a book I am proud Andy has had the time and inclination to write. It is up to the rest of us to begin a national debate about what to do about it.
Gerry Hassan
It will challenge many of your most central assumptions. That land ownership and land reform are about rural areas. That this has nothing to say about Glasgow and Edinburgh. That Scotland is an egalitarian country, unlike class-divided, hiearchical England. That the days of feudalism and power acting with impunity are long over.
Wightman is an expert on land ownership, but he and this book are about much more. In short, what he is addressing is how power is exercised in Scotland; in our past and to this day. The forces of reaction - from feudal barons to the present day 'great and good' constantly usurp others rights, taking from the commons and individuals.
And what Wightman beautifully challenges - in detail - is the Scots blindness to this because of our old comfort story of being an egalitarian nation. What this has masked is that Scots dont want to face up to issues of power, privilege, abuse and exclusion. Yes we love going on about some mythical wrong done to a group in the far distant past, but real misuses of power - involving complexity, the abuse of the law and due process - well forget it.
This is an important book on every level, and a book I am proud Andy has had the time and inclination to write. It is up to the rest of us to begin a national debate about what to do about it.
Gerry Hassan
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
A fascinating insight into the ownership of land in Scotland. Parts are a bit 'legalistic' for a lay person, but in general it is very readable.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A fascinating book full of lot of analytical data. The author clearly knows his subject and as a Land Law practitioner I can see that Scotland has been very slow in registration of its Land Titles which has aided a minority to control large swathes of land. Compulsory Registration should be passed by the Scottish Parliament for all land in Scotland by a specific date. The author's description of the Common Good Fund and the mismanagement of it by the Local Authorities makes interesting reading. The Burgh's again typical of people's greed.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is curious of what has been going on north of the border in relation to land ownership for the past 800 years.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is curious of what has been going on north of the border in relation to land ownership for the past 800 years.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A key book for the new Scotland
This book deserves as wide a circulation as possible. If we do manage in 2014 to pluck up the courage to vote for Independence, then Andy Wightman has given us a handbook to guide... Read more
Published 17 days ago by P. Hamilton
Important new perspectives on Reformation
IMPORTANT NOTE ... this book shows as out of print in hardback, but there is a paperback edition in print (and reprinted)- see The Poor Had No Lawyers: Who Owns Scotland and How... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Alastair McIntosh
Should be compulsory reading in schools
This is the sort of history we didn't get taught in school; probably because it has the capacity to stir the emotions at the way the Scottish poor became the Scottish dispossessed... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Ms. Fiona Allen
The truth about Scottish Land
This is a well presented easy to read expose of the truth
about Scottish Land.
It clearly explains the history and gives examples of the exploitations of the many by the... Read more
about Scottish Land.
It clearly explains the history and gives examples of the exploitations of the many by the... Read more
Published 18 months ago by scammonden
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