Series Editor: Hew Strachan
Fully illustrated and part of the Folio Society’s Great Battles series, Murray Pittock’s Culloden boldly reassesses the last battle fought on British soil – a clash that ended the Jacobite uprising.
‘Historical writing that wears its heart on its sleeve is all the more interesting for it... Culloden is certainly timely.’
- Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
The Battle of Culloden lasted barely an hour, but its effect on Britain’s history was profound. In this provocative study, Professor Murray Pittock revisits the last pitched battle ever fought on British soil. With a forensic mastery of written and archaeological sources, he recounts the events of 16 April 1746, when forces loyal to King George II crushed the predominantly Scottish troops of Prince Charles Edward Stuart on a moor outside Inverness. Pittock dispels many stubborn myths, such as the stereotype of sword-wielding Highlanders mown down by a ruthless, mechanised British army, and soberly assesses the brutal repression of the Highlanders that followed. This superb Folio Society edition augments Pittock’s battlefield photographs with 16 pages of colour images, from contemporary paintings, maps and cartoons to modern artworks inspired by the battle. Presented in a unique binding by series illustrator Geoff Grandfield, and incorporating three hand-drawn maps, Culloden is the most complete account of a battle that thwarted Jacobite ambitions to reclaim the throne, setting Great Britain on the path to becoming a major imperial power.
Quarter-bound in blocked cloth, with textured paper sides printed with artwork by Geoff Grandfield
Set in Garamond
200 pages
16 pages of colour plates, plus 9 integrated photographs and 3 maps
Plain slipcase
9˝ x 5¾˝
Culloden is the third in the Folio Society’s Great Battles series, selected and edited by military historian Hew Strachan and written by leading scholars in their field. Like its sister volumes Waterloo and Thermopylae, it draws upon current research to cast new light on an iconic military engagement. Murray Pittock delves deep into the cultural legacy and interpretation of Culloden: a vital task, as ‘no battle out of living memory is remembered so powerfully and so falsely’. His analysis of its aftermath is spirited and tightly argued, ending with his present-day reflections on the battlefield as a site of pilgrimage and a place of unique significance to Scottish identity. With the Union of England and Scotland once again under scrutiny, some 275 years after the Jacobite defeat, Culloden is a timely read.
Murray Pittock is Bradley Professor and Pro Vice-Principal at the University of Glasgow, and one of the world’s leading scholars of Jacobitism and Romanticism. His many books include The Myth of the Jacobite Clans, The Invention of Scotland and, most recently, Enlightenment in a Smart City. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Royal Historical Society, Scottish History Adviser to the National Trust for Scotland, and Chair of the Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance.
Hew Strachan is a British military historian and one of the world’s foremost experts on the First World War. He has held many university posts and is currently Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. His books include The First World War (2003; new edn 2014), The First World War in Africa (2004), Clausewitz’s On War: A Biography (2007) and The Direction of War (2013).
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