I heartily endorse all of the recommendations made so far. Among the recommendations are some very good general surveys. For anyone who wishes to delve in more depth, I have a few ideas.

One of the better histories is actually a four book set, the series title is The Edinburgh History of Scotland, which is comprised of [not necessarily in any order]: (1) W. Ferguson, Scotland: 1689 to the Present, (2) E. Donaldson, Scotland James V-James VII; (3) R. Nicholson, Scotland: the Later Middle Ages; (4) A.A.M. Duncan, Scotland: the Making of the Kingdom.

Another idea is a book called Scotland: The Autobiography, which makes principal use of original document extracts and contemprorary writings to bring you through Scotland's history. It is a modestly sized volume, and a fun way to hear about Scotland's history from contemporary sources without the filter of some historiographer.

For those intereset in social history, the field is a little more fraught. There has been a decades long debate between economic and social historians of Scotland over economic and social developments, especially in discussing the Highland Clearances. I have just begun reading J. Hunter's The Making of the Crofting Community, which was first published in the mid-70's, and has been quite controversial in painting a very critical picture of landlords and their factors actions in the Highland Clearances. Hunter criticizes much of the economic and social history that has been written as failing to accurately account for the experience, perspective and plight of the individuals and communities dislocated by the clearances.

The opposing camp, which seems to hold that such history over sentimentalizes a nasty, brutish and obsolete lifestyle which soon would have been destroyed by global economic developments anyway, is perhaps epitomized in T.C. Smout, A History of the Scottish People 1560-1830 [1969]

In the introduction to the 2000 edition of The Making of the Crofting Community, Hunter states that his book was greatly influenced by, and in some respects patterned on, E.P. Thomson's The Making of the English Working Class[Hunter's title being a direct adaptation of Thomson's], wherein the idea is to discuss history from the bottom up, instead of the top down.

Hunter is very critical of Smout and his ilk, concluding that they are too dismissive of the human and cultural cost of the Highland Clearances, and that it is appropriate for historians to include their moral conclusions in their work. Hunter argues against what he perceives to be Smout et. al.'s "landlord centric" approach, and in which Hunter claims they discredit history of the clearances taking the perspective of individuals and destroyed culture as the product of "popularizers" [like Hunter himself, and John Prebble] who have failed to adequately account for the economic and social data contained in available sources. Smout et. al. remind me of some historiographers in the Annale school, who seek to elevate demographic data over the anecdotal. Of course, the greater truth probably lies in some balance between the various approaches.

I'm not sure that I am going to devote extensive time to plumbing the depths of the controversy, my real interest is in an attempt to gain some insight into what life was actually like before and after the Highland Clearances. It appears that there may be considerable work in filtering out the historiographical controversy, and the attendant philosophical and political disputes. We''ll see how much patience I have for that.

Great thread, great ideas! Happy reading!