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The Times Great Scottish Lives: Obituaries of Scotland’s Finest
From Sir Walter Scott in 1832 to Tam Dalyell in 2017, this selection of ‘Scotlandâ€s finest†from the obituary columns of The Times includes some of the worldâ€s most notable writers, scientists, soldiers, explorers, philosophers and artists. Here, in over 100 obituaries, figures as diverse as Sir David Livingstone, Robert Louis Stevenson, Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, Sir Matt Busby and Robin Cook are judged by their contemporaries in articles that illustrate the social, cultural and political history of Scotland.
384 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2018
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About the author
The Times
469 books5 followersThe Times is a British daily (Monday to Saturday) national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. The Times and The Sunday Times do not share editorial staff, were founded independently, and have only had common ownership since 1967.
See also:
The Sunday Times
The New York Times
The Times of India
The Tampa Bay Times
The Los Angeles Times
The Economic Times
The Seattle Times
The Irish Times
The Straits Times
See also:
The Sunday Times
The New York Times
The Times of India
The Tampa Bay Times
The Los Angeles Times
The Economic Times
The Seattle Times
The Irish Times
The Straits Times
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 19, 2018
I’m confused. What makes someone Scottish? I have carefully read Magnus Linklater's introduction to this collection of obituaries of the great and the good. He justifies some of his choices and some of his omissions. He bemoans the lack of women in the collection, saying that it reflects the ‘age in which these obituaries were compiled’? Really? Margo MacDonald is included and she died in 2014. Amongst the men, Ronnie Corbett died in 2016. A funny man more worthy of inclusion than Lewis Grassic Gibbon, in Linklater's opinion but not mine. So what ‘age’ are we talking about here?
For me, for the purposes of a volume like this, a Scot is someone who is Scottish by birth. At risk of being accused of xenophobia or, worse still, racism, how many Scots by birth have gone to live in England and from then on identified themselves as English? Don’t all shout Tony Blair at once as that’s more an example of political expediency than fluid nationalism! What makes Salford born Sir Peter Maxwell Davies Scottish other than that he chose to live in Orkney for the last 30 years of his life? Dame Muriel Spark lived all her long adult life outside Scotland but was no less Scottish for it so why is ‘Max’ not English? Did he think of himself as Scottish? I wonder. This isn’t a puerile argument. It’s about meeting expectations and too many ‘Scots’ in this volume quite simply aren’t.
Stepping down off my soapbox, despite my intrinsic problem with the use of the epithet Scottish, this is an enjoyable collection of obituaries. I met people I’d never heard of before and enjoyed reading about those I had.
With thanks to NetGalley and Collins Reference for a free review copy.
For me, for the purposes of a volume like this, a Scot is someone who is Scottish by birth. At risk of being accused of xenophobia or, worse still, racism, how many Scots by birth have gone to live in England and from then on identified themselves as English? Don’t all shout Tony Blair at once as that’s more an example of political expediency than fluid nationalism! What makes Salford born Sir Peter Maxwell Davies Scottish other than that he chose to live in Orkney for the last 30 years of his life? Dame Muriel Spark lived all her long adult life outside Scotland but was no less Scottish for it so why is ‘Max’ not English? Did he think of himself as Scottish? I wonder. This isn’t a puerile argument. It’s about meeting expectations and too many ‘Scots’ in this volume quite simply aren’t.
Stepping down off my soapbox, despite my intrinsic problem with the use of the epithet Scottish, this is an enjoyable collection of obituaries. I met people I’d never heard of before and enjoyed reading about those I had.
With thanks to NetGalley and Collins Reference for a free review copy.
November 28, 2018
I kindly received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.
This is an interesting book to gain snippets of information on the lives of some of the great Scottish lives of recent times. I should probably say great Scottish men, as women are woefully represented here. It is perhaps understandable that there were not so many noteworthy women from the late 19th and early 20th century, as women were just not given the same opportunities as men. However, this book covers deaths up to 2016 so you would expect there to be more of a balance in the sexes than there actually is in this book.
An interesting read and I have discovered some new names I was previously unaware of, but as discussed above- certainly not without emissions.
This is an interesting book to gain snippets of information on the lives of some of the great Scottish lives of recent times. I should probably say great Scottish men, as women are woefully represented here. It is perhaps understandable that there were not so many noteworthy women from the late 19th and early 20th century, as women were just not given the same opportunities as men. However, this book covers deaths up to 2016 so you would expect there to be more of a balance in the sexes than there actually is in this book.
An interesting read and I have discovered some new names I was previously unaware of, but as discussed above- certainly not without emissions.
November 29, 2021
I was disappointed in the concept of this book and its choices. I should have realised that reading one obituary after another is not the best way to explore the good and great of Scotland. And I felt industrialists were underrepresented, especially since it covers the period of rise, and fall, of Scotland's industrial might. It might be useful as a reference book.
December 13, 2024
The format of this book really let it down. It would have been better to learn more about each individual.
November 8, 2018
Thanks to Times Books and Netgalley for the advance reading copy.
I myself am Scottish so I thought it likely that I would find this collection of obituaries from The Times fascinating and the book largely lived up to my expectations. It was amusing to see the witty language used in some of the obituaries and also reading between the lines to see the thinly veiled denigrating commentary on some of the deceased. There is an eclectic group of people included, some very well known, others not so much. I was able to learn some interesting and illuminating facts about people I had heard of, but didn’t know much about e.g. Thomas Telford, a man who made a significant impact on the Highlands where I hail from. There were a number of people who piqued my curiosity enough that I immediately went to do further research on. These obituaries could be used as a starting point for a History teacher to use in a class project investigating past and current attitudes to these historical people.
There is however a noticeable lack of women, in the modern world this strikes me as a huge omission and jars a bit. I’d be curious to know if women were largely ignored when it came to getting a Times obituary write up in the first place, or whether the choice of obituaries included largely excluded women. There is also a tenuous link to Scottishness for some of the inclusions (although.. “What makes a Scot?” is a question that has been and will continue to be debated). In his introduction, Linklater mentions Lewis Grassic Gibbon for example and I felt his lack of inclusion to be a mistake when considering some of the other inclusions. Linklater himself states that part of the reason for inclusions were how interesting and well written the obituary itself was, but it still struck me as an omission.
Linklater also mentions the fact that obituary writers were anonymous so as to not have their political allegiances held against them. Despite that, it’s often easy to infer the bias against some of the individuals, highlighted particularly in the rather short and scornful obituary of Keir Hardie. Again, this is something Linklater explains this in the introduction - that many now considered titans of the past were not considered so at the time of the writing. That said, in some cases it appears rather incongruous, in the case of beloved writers in particular. This works in reverse too, with the glowing obituary of Douglas Haig for example, a man whose reputation has been thoroughly trashed in the years since World War I.
Overall, a very interesting collection of obituaries that shine a light on some of the current opinions of the day. I think this book would be a great gift for someone interested in learning more about some of the well-known, and less well-known people from Scottish History.
I myself am Scottish so I thought it likely that I would find this collection of obituaries from The Times fascinating and the book largely lived up to my expectations. It was amusing to see the witty language used in some of the obituaries and also reading between the lines to see the thinly veiled denigrating commentary on some of the deceased. There is an eclectic group of people included, some very well known, others not so much. I was able to learn some interesting and illuminating facts about people I had heard of, but didn’t know much about e.g. Thomas Telford, a man who made a significant impact on the Highlands where I hail from. There were a number of people who piqued my curiosity enough that I immediately went to do further research on. These obituaries could be used as a starting point for a History teacher to use in a class project investigating past and current attitudes to these historical people.
There is however a noticeable lack of women, in the modern world this strikes me as a huge omission and jars a bit. I’d be curious to know if women were largely ignored when it came to getting a Times obituary write up in the first place, or whether the choice of obituaries included largely excluded women. There is also a tenuous link to Scottishness for some of the inclusions (although.. “What makes a Scot?” is a question that has been and will continue to be debated). In his introduction, Linklater mentions Lewis Grassic Gibbon for example and I felt his lack of inclusion to be a mistake when considering some of the other inclusions. Linklater himself states that part of the reason for inclusions were how interesting and well written the obituary itself was, but it still struck me as an omission.
Linklater also mentions the fact that obituary writers were anonymous so as to not have their political allegiances held against them. Despite that, it’s often easy to infer the bias against some of the individuals, highlighted particularly in the rather short and scornful obituary of Keir Hardie. Again, this is something Linklater explains this in the introduction - that many now considered titans of the past were not considered so at the time of the writing. That said, in some cases it appears rather incongruous, in the case of beloved writers in particular. This works in reverse too, with the glowing obituary of Douglas Haig for example, a man whose reputation has been thoroughly trashed in the years since World War I.
Overall, a very interesting collection of obituaries that shine a light on some of the current opinions of the day. I think this book would be a great gift for someone interested in learning more about some of the well-known, and less well-known people from Scottish History.
January 20, 2019
This books brings to live through death the stories and histories of many of Scotland's citizens throughout the last 200 years, It is full of many recognisable and also some not so recognisable names from the breadth of Scottish society.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews