This book argues that while Anglo-Saxon culture has given rise to virtually no myths at all, myth has played a central role in the historical development of Scottish identity. Trevor-Roper explores three myths across 400 years of Scottish history: the political myth of the 'ancient constitution' of Scotland; the literary myth, including Walter Scott as well as Ossian and ancient poetry; and the sartorial myth of tartan and the kilt, invented - ironically by Englishmen - in quite modern times.Trevor-Roper reveals myth as an often deliberate cultural construction used to enshrine a people's identity. While his treatment of Scottish myth is highly critical, indeed debunking, he shows how the ritualisation and domestication of Scotland's myths as local colour diverted the Scottish intelligentsia from the path that led German intellectuals to a dangerous myth of racial supremacy.This compelling script was left unpublished on Trevor-Roper's death in 2003 and is now made available for the first time. Written with characteristic elegance, lucidity and wit, and containing defiant and challenging opinions, it will absorb and provoke Scottish readers and intrigue many others.

 Read more about Hugh Trevor-Roper, historian and author.

'... bound to cause a bit of a stir.' Arminta Wallace, Irish Times

'This witty and elegantly written book will delight any reader with an open mind.' Adam Sisman, Sunday Telegraph

'This work, more or less completed almost 30 years ago and now published for the first time reminds us of that (Hugh Trevor-Roper's) talent ... This [is a] vastly entertaining and highly intelligent book.' Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph

'Trevor-Roper is generous in his admiration for Celtic culture capable of discovering and developing itself by devising its own identity.' The Times

'Books by authors who have died tend to be curiously flat, and are often publish out of pious memory of the deceased. Not so with The Invention of Scotland. Two decades after the author died, it deserves to be retrieved. Cater has performed a significant literary and historical service.' Tam Dalyell, The Scotsman

'For those concerned with the academic legacy of Hugh Trevor-Roper, this must be a welcome addition to the canon.' Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday

'How the publishers of this remarkable volume must have hugged themselves when Wendy Alexander, the leader of the Scottish Labour party, recently thrust her hand into the hornets' nest of Scottish independence. On the face of it, a book on this history of Scotland by an academic who died five years ago is not the most marketable of items. But now it has a topicality that should propel it straight onto the best-seller lists ... The prose is elegant, the argument incisive, the tone ironic ... It is hoped to be that Trevor-Roper's literary estate contains more unpublished gems.' Tim Blanning, The Sunday Times

'a stunning piece of detective work ... [Trevor-Roper's] daring scholarship will remind specialists in Scottish history - who have proved especially hostile in the past to his excursions into their territory - of several unexplained aspects of the Ossian affair.' Colin Kidd, London Review Books

'Characterised by seductively readable prose ... it is undoubtedly helpful to have this aspect of Trevor-Roper's Scottish researches published in a single volume. ' Clare Jackson, Literary Review