Shetland and the Outside World, 1469 - 1969

by Donald J. Withrington (Editor), Barbara E. Crawford (Contributor)

These fourteen essays range over a wide array of topics, illuminating the course of Shetland history over the five hundred years which followed Christian I of Denmark's pawning of the islands to Scotland in 1469. Here we have Shetland at peace and at war; Shetland in economic health and in economic decline; the Shetland of the invader, the Shetland of the tourist; Shetland as seen by Shetlanders, reviewing their own past, distant or recent; Shetland as the battleground of warring cultures and traditions; Shetland as the centre of great trading and fishing empires, and as an essential frontier in time of war (as in 1939-45) - and Shetland thereafter forgotten by Governments, left to secure its own identity and salvation, to seek out its own economic and social survival; we have the Shetlander at home and the Shetlander roaming the world as sailor and emigrant. Shetland and the Outside World brings together all these facets, often in a novel way.

239 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1983