Writing Scottish Parliamentary History,c.1500–1707

In the 19th and 20th centuries, scholarship on the Scottish parliament was heavily informed by a narrative of ‘failure’, directed at explaining why its members voted it out of existence in 1707. Part of the problem was the tendency to see any deviation from the practices of the Westminster parliament as weakness. By reappraising parliament in terms of its utility to those who comprised its membership, notably the titled peerage and the monarch, historians have revealed its adaptability and inventiveness, especially in times of crisis. This essay considers how fresh approaches both to what constituted the parliamentary record and what can – and cannot – be found within it have exerted a transformative influence on our understanding of parliament's evolving role in Scottish political life. Although the Reformation crisis of 1560 and the accession of the ruling house of Stewart to the English throne in 1603 effected profound changes on parliamentary culture, this essay emphasises how parliament sustained its legitimacy and relevance, in part, by drawing on past practices and ideas. Historians have become more attentive in recent years to the means by which social groupings ordinarily excluded from formal parliamentary activity were nonetheless able to engage with, and influence, its proceedings. Gaps remain in our knowledge, however. Some periods have been more intensively studied than others, while certain aspects of parliamentary culture are understudied. The writing of Scottish parliamentary history will continue to offer rich possibilities in future.     

The anthropologist,the state,the empire and the ‘tribe’

This review of Akbar Ahmed's The thistle and the drone finds that the book opens new dimensions for understanding the relations between state and peripheral groups.     

Phaedrus’ Cicadas: Patrizi's Dialoghi and vernacular rhetoric

ABSTRACT

In his Dieci dialoghi della retorica (Venice, 1562), Francesco Patrizi analyses the nature of language and the historical developments of oratory, taking part in the debate on this art reinforced by the spread of the Aristotelian Rhetoric. This gave him the opportunity to consider the origins of human social life and explain the traditional rhetorical teaching in an anthropological perspective. He also argued against the civic use of oratory as presented in some contemporary treatises on it, written in the vernacular.     

The Canada-US Relationship: An Updated Evaluation of Public Opinion

ABSTRACT

Despite the political turbulence of the Trump-Trudeau era, the US-Canada relationship remains workable on many policy fronts. Against this backdrop, this article explores this relationship by first focusing on public opinion toward “the other,” including general sentiments as well as political leadership specifically, before turning to public opinion in specific policy fields, such as bilateral trade, security, energy, and diplomacy. We broadly find that Canadians are more likely than Americans to draw distinctions between Canada and the US and view the relationship in more cautious terms. By contrast, opinion in the US appears to be much more positive about the relationship.