Why Didn't They Tell Me About This?

As I began to read on my own toward the end of and after the completion of my "formal" education, I came across various references to significant events in British history, and somewhere along the way I picked up the bare fact that what was left of an independent Scotland was finally brought to heel and incorporated into Britain at the Battle of Culloden in 1745. The bare fact always seemed significant to me; certainly much more significant than much of the history I had been taught in school -- which, as far as I can remember, did not include even a single mention of this most significant of historic events for anyone living in the English-speaking world. But then again, maybe they did mention it, or included "Culloden" in a textbook chart somewhere that I studied for a test late one night.

In any case, I had no idea. There is so much to tell about this book and the history it covers. A cultural analysis of early 18th century Highland culture (intensely feudal and clan centered, poor, and independent minded), a fair amount of detail about British army life of the period (viscious, low paying, and frequently punctuated by the lash, yet still better than life in the London slums), a contextual portrait of "Bonny Prince Charlie" who recruited and led the Scottish uprising in an attempt to recapture the throne of Britain for the Stuarts, and a detailed exploration of the inhuman brutality with which the British army handled several thousand captured Highlanders (imagine weeks or months in the hold of a ship crowded with other prisoners, sleeping on ballast stones and eating and drinking insufficient quantities of raw butchered cattle and pig entrails) and crushed the "rebellious spirit" of the Highlands through a months-long occupation during which they drove off all the livestock, burned every house they could find, stole everything they could carry from the locals (often even including the clothes they were wearing) and burned everything else, and then sold what they stole and split up the profits according to rank. It is no exaggeration to say that the British approach to prisoner treatment makes Abu Graib look like a halfway house and Guantanomo look like a Motel 6.

And all of this written in an engaging, accessible style by . . . a Canadian Communist! Google "John Prebble" to learn more. To be sure, he appears to have joined in the early 20th century when huge numbers of intellectuals were pulled in to Communism, and he pulled out of the party by mid-century. In that respect his story is like many other intellectuals of his time. But that's a whole other discussion. Suffice to say that it is obvious from this book that Mr. Prebble approached his subject with honesty and and integrity, albeit with an unusual (for his time) focus on the lot of the common soldier and the common people -- the victims of history that had been ignored so long by professional historians. It's hard to appreciate now how significant a thing this must have been at the time Prebble wrote (this book was first published in 1961), since today virtually all academic history focuses on victim groups and the sweep of events, rejecting the older concept that history is a story of great achievements by great men.

Anyway, this is a very good book, and I'll share a few excerpts in coming days.