Nationality and Identity in Scotland

Abstract

It is a question why nationalism failed to develop in Scotland; why there was no 1848, no 'springtime of nations' in Scotland? Now it may be that Scotland is not as different as we sometimes like to think and that there are other examples of states not breaking up as result of nationalist pressures. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the weakness of Scottish nationalism in both the nineteenth and the twentieth century is remarkable. The Scots had learned to live with the idea that there could be a national identity within a larger stale and that Union, even 300 year one, did not mean the loss of identity.