Search results for ""NMSE - Publishing Ltd""

From her early life of luxury at the French court to her dramatic rule of her Scottish homeland; from a life of gaiety and popularity to years of banishment and execution - this book tells the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, one of Scotland's most famous historical figures

Read more less

This is an edited collection of essays coming out of sessions held at the Native American Art Studies Association Conference, Phoenix, 2005. The seven contributors focus on the far-reaching influences of photography on Native American communities, and the possibilities that it currently presents. The essays explore the values, or currencies, attributed to photographers by practitioners and institutions, be these Native artists, or museums, archives and anthropologists. The book includes over 60 photographs by named indigenous Native American photographers.

Read more less

Lochmaben is situated in the ‘debatable lands’ on the main route into Scotland north from Carlisle. The area has historic connections to the family of Robert the Bruce. This close-knit community has lost several of its basic amenities in recent years but the recent community buyout of the Castle Loch has been a great success with many volunteers coming together. ‘Lochmaben Voices’, a project to collect the memories of the town’s residents by recording interviews with them, was set up in 2011. The eldest interviewee was born in the 1920s and the youngest in 2000s and the transcriptions reflect the various accents heard in the region. For this book, three broad categories were identified: Lochmaben, both as a physical place and a community; personal recollections of living in the town; memories of the town during the Second World War, including military connections.

Read more less

This illuminating book traces the development of Scottish women’s writing in English from its genesis in the late eighteenth century to its flowering in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hindered initially by the hostility of the Presbyterian Church and the self-serving attitude of the male hierarchy which denied them a proper education, an astonishing number of women found opportunities, in the midst of domestic obligations, to write, and often publish – novels, poetry, diaries, journalism, letters, essays and reportage. Charlotte Waldie and Christina Keith visited, respectively, Waterloo and Flanders in the immediate aftermath of battle. Another intrepid writer, Emily Graves, wrote a memoir of her travels in Transylvania in The Light Beyond the Forest – from which Bram Stoker directly lifted the most blood-curdling elements of Dracula. Others remembered include literary multi-tasker and businesswoman Christian Isabel Johnstone; playwright Joanna Baillie; working-class poets Marion Bernstein and Janet Hamilton; novelist Susan Ferrier; memoirist Anne Grant of Laggan; and writer and scientist Mary Somerville, depicted on the cover, after whom Somerville College, Oxford is named.

Read more less

Thoroughly revised and expanded from the 2012 edition (twice the number of pages, almost double the number of illustrations) this book pays tribute to the man and his diverse works and achievements. James Hutton (1726-1797) was one of the first environmentalists, a man ahead of his time. He developed a grand theory of the Earth in which he tried to make sense of a lifetime of observation and deduction about the way in which our planet functions. For example, he connected temperature with latitude. His measurements, with rudimentary thermometers, of temperature changes between the base and summit of Arthur’s Seat, were remarkably accurate and he studied climate data from other parts of the world. A leading figure in the eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment, he was also an innovative farmer, successful entrepreneur and a man with endless intellectual curiosity. The year 2026 will be the tercentenary of his birth. There will be many special events leading up to and in that year organised by The James Hutton Institute, Scotland’s premier environmental and agricultural research organisation.

Read more less

Whithorn: An Economy of People is an exploration of a unique face-to-face society in Galloway in the south west of Scotland. It paints a picture of a largely cashless economy based on trust, frugality and the skilled labour and strategies of its residents to remain independent of the rest of the world while keeping closely connected to each other. Between 2012 and 2013 Julia Muir Watt interviewed twenty-nine individuals from Whithorn and the Machars about their memories. From those interviewed we learn what it was like to grow up, to go to school, and to work and to play in Whithorn in the twentieth century, before and after the Second World War. A great strength of oral history is that it can provide a direct insight into a lived life. In this collection, we have many such insights into life in and around the burgh of Whithorn. In telling of their experiences, those interviewed also provide an understanding into what it felt like to live those lives. Co-published with the European Ethnological Research Centre based on the research undertaken by them in their programme Dumfries and Galloway:A Regional Ethnology – part of a wider research programme the Regional Ethnology of Scotland Project (RESP).

Read more less

Roman glass from indigenous sites is a key source material for studying the impact of Rome on Iron Age Scotland, but it has never been properly studied. This work fills that gap. This study is based on the Roman glass vessels found on non-Roman/native sites north of Hadrian's Wall, dated mainly to the Roman Iron Age (0-400 AD). It sheds light on aspects of Roman-native relations, most importantly the exchange of goods and ideas, and considers the problem of whether the finds of glass on native sites represent loot or plunder as has been argued, or whether they were the outcome of some peaceful enterprise such as trade, exchange or present giving.

Read more less

Parliaments existed in Scotland, off and on, from about 1200 till there was the Union with the English Parliament in 1707. In 1998 the Scotland Act decreed that 'There shall be a Scottish Parliament' and the new, devolved Parliament opened on 1 July 1999. This Scotties activity book for children aged 9-12 gives the early history of Parliaments in Scotland and then looks in more detail at how the present Parliament in Holyrood works. Scotties are exciting, full-colour Scottish information books for young readers. Each title contains a wealth of interesting facts, stimulating activities for home or classroom use, a list of websites, and suggestions for places to visit.

Read more less

'Galoshins' was a seasonal folk drama learned orally and performed, mostly by boys, in people's houses. They were rewarded with food or pennies. It took place on New Year's Eve ('Old Year's Night')or on Hallowe'en in central and southern Scotland at the very end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The drama took the form of a fight, sometimes with 'swords', and then a 'doctor' performed a comic turn in bringing the injured party back to life. These oral reminiscences, gathered for the first time in book form, were collected in the 1970s for the School of Scottish Studies Sound Archives, University of Edinburgh.

Read more less

David Livingstone rose from being a factory boy to become an African explorer and a hero of the Victorian age. This volume of essays, rich in new scholarship, tie in with an exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland (beginning 23 November 2012) which commemorate the 200th anniversary of his birth. The exhibition has been produced in collaboration with authorities in Malawi - Livingstone was the first European to document Malawi in the mid 1800s and he continues to be remembered there - and with the David Livingstone Centre in his birthplace, Blantyre, in the west of Scotland, which holds a wide range of his personal belongings and travel aids. Together, the essays present a twenty-first-century view of David Livingstone - the man, the myth and the legacy. They engage not only with matters of history - his life and work as explorer, doctor and missionary - but also with the ways in which he has been memorialised, and his contemporary significance.

Read more less

Steam traction engines were most widespread in Scotland from the 1880s until the 1940s - mainly for road haulage, powering threshing mills, ploughing and,in steam roller form, in road making. The book describes the use of steam power on Scotland road and field, and places National Museum Scotland's 1907 traction engine in its historical context with details of its construction, acquisition and restoration.

Read more less

This is a companion volume to A Geological Excursion Guide to the Moine Geology of the Northern Highlands of Scotland, published in 2010 by NMS Enterprises Limited - Publishing in conjunction with Edinburgh Geological Society. Although new roads and bridges have been constructed since the excursion guide to the Assynt district of Sutherland was published in 1979, the dramatic landscape of the North-West Highlands of Scotland remains remote. This guide describes the bedrock geology from Ullapool northwards, including many classic localities in the Moine Thrust zone and its foreland. The area largely corresponds to the North-West Highlands Geopark. In preparation for this edition, a large team was assembled to provide up-to-date interpretations of the structural relationships, sedimentology, and metamorphic history. the 16 escursions vary from roadside stops to full-day mountain walks over rough terrain, with weather liable to sudden change. Advice is given on access, and on local accommodation and transport.

Read more less

Published by NMS Enterprises Limited - Publishing on behalf of University of Dundee. The development of academic research has brought to the fore a new generation of craft practitioners and as a consequence new methods and methodologies, which are impacting on the way craft in the future will be perceived, marketed and purchased. Past, Present and Future Craft Practice explores new directions and perspectives in contemporary craft and exemplifies this step through a series of ten works. The book is based partly on a five-year-research project which posed the question: Is there a future role for craft? It is also based on the editors' work as craft practitioners - Louise Valentine's as a textile designer and Georgina Follett's as an enameller.

Read more less

This is a new edition of this best-selling "Scottie", recast and rewritten for readers of 10 upwards. The aims of the Jacobites and the background to the risings of Viscount Dundee (1689), the Earl of Mar (1715), and Charles Edward Stuart (1745) are explained, and this colourful but bloody period in Scotland's past brought vividly to life. The telling is illuminated by extracts from original documents, genealogical chart of the royal families of Scotland and England, and maps and battle plans. Illustrated in full colour with drawings, and with portraits, prints, and objects from National Museums Scotland and other national collections, this work includes an additional 8-page section in black and white that includes Jacobite songs and story-poems, a Jacobite quiz, and the original Rob Roy board game.

Read more less

'For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door And Leerie stops to light it, as he lights so many more...' The picture of a small boy peering from a window at dusk to watch the lamplighter in the street is one of the enduring images of 19th-century Edinburgh, and the child probably the most famous ever brought up there. Robert Louis Stevenson loved to conjure up a dashing, romantic lineage for himself, dreaming that he was descended from the colourful outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor. The reality was less flamboyant but no less remarkable and he would learn that the street lamps of Edinburgh owed their brilliance to the scientific work of his own great-grandfather. This welcome addition to the Robert Louis Stevenson canon gives a concise account of his life - his family background, childhood and adolescence in a Calvinist, hard-working household in Scotland, his travels in three continents and his final years in the South Seas.It examines his relationships with his parents and his nurse, with English and American friends, particularly the family into which he married, and with the Samoan islanders among whom he died at the age of 44. Stevenson's childhood experiences and Scottish identity fed his fertile imagination wherever he found himself. His legacy includes travel writing, essays and poetry, and novels such as "Treasure Island", "Kidnapped", "The Master of Ballantrae", "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", "St Ives" and "Weir of Hermiston", still read and enjoyed more than one hundred years after his death. "Robert Louis Stevenson: The Travelling Mind" is an insightful introduction to the life and work of one of the world's best-loved writers.

Read more less

What would we have seen if we looked out over the landscape of Scotland at its very beginning, before the impact of mankind? What would it be like to swim in the Jurassic sea? Or stand early one morning in the dragon-fly haunted coal forests of the Midland Valley? This book captures in words, drawings, paintings and photographs the dramatic sceneries - erupting volcanoes, colliding continents - and ever-changing landscape of Scotland. A second volume by Andrew Kitchener, describing the origins of wildlife in Scotland, is scheduled for 2006.

Read more less

An inspiring look at the remarkable women who fought so tirelessly for equality. Using new material, this study moves away from the ardent activists in London and focuses on the campaign for the vote for women in Scotland. Non-militant 'suffragist' groups were found countrywide -- from Ayrshire to Orkney -- and involved thousands of Scottish women of all ages and from all backgrounds. Unlike their attention-grabbing counterparts the Suffragettes, these women laboured not only for the right to vote, but also for the right to higher education, to separate legal existence from their husbands, and to be actively involved in local government. This is the story of individual Scottish suffragists, resolute and passionate women whose lives have been 'hidden from history', but who now receive the recognition they deserve.

Read more less

In 2017 an intense fundraising campaign ensured that what came to be known as 'the Galloway Hoard' was saved for the nation. Since then work has been ongoing to preserve and understand it. Over 5kg of silver bullion, many unique and enigmatic gold objects, the rare preservation of textiles and an unusual range of other materials, make the Hoard the richest collection of Viking-age objects every found in Britain and Ireland. Dr Martin Goldberg and Dr Mary Davis provide the first full description of the Hoard and place the find in a wider historical and geographical context.

Read more less

The humorous and intricately designed Lewis Chessmen were discovered in 1831, one of the most significant archaeological discoveries ever made in Scotland. To preserve the hoard as intactly as possible in a public collection, the majority of the pieces were acquired by the British Museum where they are on permanent display. National Museums Scotland holds 11 pieces, again on permanent display. An exhibition of 30 pieces will tour Scotland from May 2010 to June 2011. This is the book produced to accompany the exhibition; it also stands alone. It looks at the mystery and intrigue surrounding the chessmen and their discovery, and shows how the characters reflected society at the time they were made.

Read more less

Part of the award-winninq "Scotties" series of activity books for children, "Scottish Vikings" tells their story from blood-curdling and violent beginnings to the end of Norse power in 1469. Follow the Vikings as they settled large areas of the north and west of Scotland. Find out: why the Vikings travelled west-over-sea to Scotland; when and where they settled; why they sometimes buried their chiefs in longships; how the Picts and Scots coped with these invaders; and what legacy the Vikings left behind. This new edition includes features such as: expanded and redesigned; an 8-page pull-out black and white section with games, puzzles and drawings for colouring in which can be photocopied by teachers for classroom use; and, photographs of Viking objects from the collections of the National Museums Scotland.

Read more less

The book explores the rich material contained within a collection of oral history recordings with Peeblesshire textile mill workers, made by Ian MacDougall between 1996 and 2004. Their testimonies chart a period of immense change across all aspects of textile manufacturing, an industry which was always in a state of flux with innovations in processes and fibres. The recordings encompass the experience of a generation of workers affected by two World Wars – their fathers having been in the First and themselves in the Second. They also reflects on the role of women in the workplace, and community life and how this has changed in correlation to the rise and decline of the textile industry. Published by NMS Enterprises Limited – Publishing in association with The Scottish Working People's History Trust and the European Ethnological Research Centre.

Read more less

A new look at National Museums Scotland collections covering the period 800-1200: the fall of the Pictish kingdoms and rise of the Viking Age; the emergence of new players like Alba, Moray, Strathclyde, Galloway and the Norse Earldom of Orkney. Out of this turmoil were forged the roots of the kingdoms of Scotland and England.National Museums Scotland houses one of the most significant collections of Viking-age and early medieval artefacts in the world. This book offers new perspectives on star objects which have been on display for decades, and on lesser-known artefacts which have never been seen in public, and shows these in photographs taken specially for third part of The Glenmorangie Company Research Project.The previous two books coming out of the project are Early Medieval Scotland and Scotland's Early Silver.

Read more less

At its inception, the ‘Little Black Dress’ was radically modern: a masculine-inspired, anti-traditionalist female attire. Yet it has remained a wardrobe staple for almost a century, each new silhouette redressing gendered boundaries of fashion to reflect evolving ideals of beauty and sexuality. In attempting to reconcile the historical study of fashion in the West with the reality of a global fashion system of production, distribution and consumption, and the urgent demand for the industry to be more aware of its footfalls in our culture, Little Black Dress: A Radical Fashion widens the lens through which we interpret the colour black. In this book, international scholars, curators and fashion writers explore how black’s paradoxical meanings have made the LBD simultaneously expressive of respect and rebellion, sophistication and dissident sexualities, piety and perversion. Bridging tradition and innovation, fashion and anti-fashion, the LBD emerges as a radical fashion for the 21st century.

Read more less

This book is based on the artwork of Sue Jane Taylor. She is no stranger to extreme working environments, having worked for over thirty years recording the lives of workers in the North Sea oil industry on sites such as Piper Alpha, Piper B, Forties platforms and recently Murchison in the Northern Seas. Her work now extends to the offshore renewable energy industry. The book brings a unique perspective to the relationship between art, environment and industry while revealing a relatively alien way of life on board a North Sea oil platform. Among other themes it will consider the future of energy in Scotland. The book has an introductory essay by Elsa Cox, Senior Curator of Technology at National Museums Scotland, illustrated by relevant objects from the collections in the National Museum. This is followed by Sue Jane Taylor's artwork, with extended captions.

Read more less

The breadth of National Museums Scotland's collections, together with the support of The Glenmorangie Company, puts National Museums in a unique position to reveal the role of silver in the development of the first kingdoms of Scotland. It was silver, not gold, which was the most important and powerful precious metal in Scotland for over six hundred years and, as well as showcasing beautiful objects, the book builds on the Glenmorangie Research Project to gives fresh insights into this formative period of Scottish history. Based on the exhibition Scotland's Early Silver which was at the National Museum of Scotland and is now on tour.

Read more less

This book tells the history of Scotland between 1249 and 1371 from the Golden Age of Alexander III to Robert II, the first Stewart king. This takes in the Scottish Wars of Independence: William Wallace and the Battle of Stirling Bridge; and Robert the Bruce and the decisive Battle of Bannockburn. Find out ...* Who was the 'Maid of Norway' * How John Balliol got his nickname * What was the 'Ragman Roll' * What the name Wallace means * What is the Stone of Destiny

Read more less

This is the souvenir book of the exhibition Photography: A Victorian Sensation at National Museums Scotland June - November 2015. Meet the pioneers of photography and discover how the Victorian craze for the photograph transformed the way we capture images today and mirrors our own modern-day fascination for recording the world around us. The book highlights objects in National Museum Scotland's history of photography collections and explains the importance of such Scottish practitioners such as David Octavius Hill, Robert Adamson and George Washington Wilson.

Read more less

In nineteenth century Japan, woodblock prints were a cultural phenomenon, with thousands of designs issued annually. Prints were a cheap and colourful medium of entertainment, much like magazines and posters today. Kabuki is a unique combination of drama, dance, music, and acrobatics, still enthusiastically followed today. It is distinctive for its stylisation, lavish visual appearance, and intense kinetic energy. The plots concern tragic romances, feats of derring-do, and conflicts of loyalty, involving larger-than-life heroes, heroines, and villains. Whatever the story of the play, however, it was the actor above all that the audience came to see. Most of National Museums Scotland's magnificent collection of around 4,000 prints was acquired in the 1880s at the peak of the craze for Japanese art and design in Europe, and features the major artists of the time. This book features the highlights of the exhibition opening at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, October 2013.

Read more less

In 1914, as the world prepared for war, thousands of men enlisted in Scotland. But thousands more Scots, and those of Scottish descent, joined up across the world. As the optimism of 1914 gave way to the grim reality of years of conflict, the human cost of fighting the First World War became a foundation of national consciousness - for Canada at Vimy Ridge, for Australia and New Zealand at Gallipoli, for South Africa at Delville Wood. Based on the exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland (11 July to 12 October 2014) the book explores how military service was related to other expressions of Scottish identity. And, following the structure of the exhibition, personal story vignettes, based on National Museum Scotland and on international collections, will reinforce the main themes of migration, multiple identity and loss.

Read more less

An up-to-date geological excursion guide to the Stirling and Perth area.

Read more less

The Millennium Clock first chimed on 1 January 2000 and crowds still gather round it in the National Museum of Scotland. The finished clock tower echoes the form of a medieval cathedral, standing just over ten metres high. It marks the passing of time but is also a summary of the best and worst of the twentieth century. The animated construction comprises four sections: The Crypt, The Nave, The Belfry and The Spire. Each has its own stories to tell and secrets to reveal. This edition is in a new format and has 12 superb replacement photographs which give close-ups of some of the clock's intricate details. The clock tower is a collaboration between E Bersudsky, A Sandstrom, T Stead and J Tubbecke.

Read more less

When John Napier published his invention of logarithms in 1614 he was announcing one of the greatest advances in the history of mathematics, and log tables were used universally until the mid 1970s. With his Rabdologia, an ingenious calculating tool composed of numbered rods which came to be known as 'Napier's Bones', he enabled people in the marketplace to do multiplication sums without knowing any multiplication tables. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this most extrordinary man was that his great inventions were made without the stimulus of talking to other mathematicians in mainstream Europe. Working away in comparative isolation in a tower house in Scotland, Napier produced methods of calculation that literally changed lives all over the world. He is the father of the slide-rule and the grandfather of today's calculators. Despite his achievements, he remains curiously uncelebrated, and this absorbing story of his life aims to give John Napier his true status. This new edition has been redesigned in a new format and has a new cover.

Read more less

Now rewritten and redesigned to include photographs of objects from National Museums Scotland, "The Clans" explains how the idea of clanship developed and traces the one-time hostility between Highlanders and Lowlanders. Readers can find out: where the clans were found; what the connection was with the Gaelic language; who the clan chiefs were, and how the clans were organised; how the clansmen dressed; where clan names came from; how to design their own tartan; and, how to write a praise poem or lament - and more. The book also includes a list of websites and suggestions for places to visit.

Read more less

From the wrath of Macbeth to the kindness of Margaret, from the warrior-like Robert I to the poetic charms of James I, from the romantic spirit of Mary, Queen of Scots to the trend-setting George IV - the Kings and Queens of Scotland are brought vividly to life in this colorful pageant of characters, and there are many tales of plotting and fighting along the way. The book features photographs, portraits, prints and etchings, and interesting objects from National Museums Scotland and other national collections. It also contains an additional 8-page section of facts and activities for children of 7-10. You can find out: which King was known as 'Great Chief' or 'Big Head'; what Robert the Bruce learned from the spider; which King died because of a blocked drain; which King used to wander about in disguise; and, how Mary, Queen of Scots escaped from an island castle. The new look Scotties are exciting, full-color information books containing a wealth of interesting facts, illustrations and photographs, stimulating activities, places of interest, and selected websites.

Read more less

Dr Isabel Grant (1887-1983) was a pioneer who, early in life, was intrigued by the lives and ways of living of her fellow Highlanders. She eventually pursued this by collecting objects - farming, fishing, crofting and domestic - from across the Scottish Highlands and presenting them to the public, initially as an exhibition in Inverness in 1930, then in Iona, and later in a dedicated museum Am Fasgadh ('the Shelter'). The tenacity shown by Dr Grant in pursuit of an idea that first struck her while on a childhood visit to Sweden is revealed in her own words. In the face of indifference, little money, sexism and the erratic Scottish climate, Dr Grant succeeded in presenting items which told of the working and home lives of the people she so admired. Am Fasgadh continues today as the popular Highland Folk Museum at Kingussie and Newtonmore, Inverness-shire, Scotland.

Read more less

The Scottish highlands played a pivotal role in the secret development of special service training during the Second World War. The remote and rough terrain came into its own as a training and testing ground for new types of fighting. "Commando Country" looks at the variety of special training establishments set up (mostly highland shooting lodges), and at how use was made of the landscape and coastline and of specialist civilian skills such as stalking and mountaineering. It stresses how these new methods of warfare, tested in Scotland, spread internationally into the present day elite status of 'special forces' world-wide.The story involves many famous names from a variety of backgrounds such as actors David Niven and Alec Guinness, mountaineer John Hunt, and polar explorer Martin Lindsay, as well as famous military figures such as David Stirling, founder of the SAS and Special Operations Executive agent Violet Szabo. Conveying the atmosphere of remote highland locations, the book makes strong use of photographs and personal testimony collected from those involved, bringing a unique Scottish perspective to a popular subject.

Read more less