This "elegant portrait of Edinburgh in the age of Enlightenment" reveals a thriving city of artists, architects, scientists, and other pioneers ( Times Literary Supplement).In the early eighteenth century, Edinburgh, Scotland, was a filthy backwater town synonymous with poverty and disease. Yet by century's end, it had become the marvel of modern Europe, home to the finest minds of the day and their breathtaking innovations in architecture, politics, scienc...

A myth-busting insider’s account of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 that destroyed US influence in the country and transformed the politics of the Middle East and the world.The 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran was one of the seminal events of our time. It inaugurated more than thirty years of war in the Middle East and fostered an Islamic radicalism that shapes foreign policy in the United States and Europe to this day.Drawing on his lifetime of engagement wi...

'A concisely rich reading experience like no other . . . immensely, continuously exciting to boot. Highly, highly recommended' Francis Spufford'An epic voyage well worth taking' Telegraph'There is nothing quite like a James Buchan novel' Financial TimesAutumn, 1785. Two young boys, in the uniform of officer cadets of the Royal Military College, are standing outside the porter's gate of a h...

France, 1755. William and Jeanne Neilson, together at last, are living in the deep country and are happier than either ever expected to be. Their children, the foundling Marie-Ange and young William, are growing up. Jeanne devotes her mornings to scientific research while William has exchanged soldiering for agricultural improvement.Yet both are restless. Jeanne, herself married to a poor Scotsman outlawed in Great Britain, is determined her adoptive daughter shall have a throne. M...

One of Britain's outstanding historical writers delivers a romantic and picaresque masterpiece that tells the fascinating story of William Neilson.In 1720, the young William Neilson leaves Edinburgh to make his fortune in Europe, first sailing to Rotterdam and then on foot to Paris, where he meets and is immediately employed by the banker John Law. A day later he is in the Bastille, but not before he has encountered a young woman of surpassing beauty to whom Neilson will be devoted...

The astonishing story of William Neilson continues.New Year's Eve, 1746. A castle in the depths of France. A thunderstorm. A pair of lovers in a hay-loft. A wounded soldier toppling from his horse. So begins the second instalment of the life of William Neilson, Scottish soldier in French service and Jacobite agent against his will. Around his neck, William carries the most precious jewel on the surface of the earth, but it is not his, and he must carry it to the exiled King of Engla...

At the summit of his power, John Law was the most famous man in Europe.Born in Scotland in 1671, he was convicted of murder in London and, after his escape from prison, fled Scotland for the mainland when Union with England brought with it a warrant for his arrest.On the continent he lurched from one money-making scheme to the next - selling insurance against losing lottery tickets in Holland, advising the Duke of Savoy - amassing a fortune of some £80,000.But for h...

First published in 1998, this volume emerged in the context of rapidly developing nursing and health care fields and features contributions on areas in the NHS and private nursing including nurses’ pay and education, the gender balance in the nursing labour market, working patterns, employment contracts and turnover. It is part of a series of monographs offers up-to-date reports of recently completed research projects in the fields of nursing and health care. The aim of the series is to re...

Paris, 1784. Following a tragic battle in Quebec, we join William Neilson's grandson - also William - as he strives to find purpose in a changing world, amidst a backdrop of terror and conspiracy, and battles so bitter, they break even the strongest of wills.Full of colour, and with rich and detailed research, the tales of William Nielson and his family are hugely entertaining and a must for readers of swashbuckling fiction.'An epic voyage well worth taking' Telegraph

Sometime in the early nineteenth century, most likely in the year 1818, the Reverend Robert Scott, minister of the parish of Glenbuchat in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, compiled a collection of traditional ballads that until now has not been published. Most of the ballad collections produced during the Scottish Romantic Revival were eventually anthologized in Francis James Child's seminal English and Scottish Popular Ballads (five volumes, 1882-96). Yet, the Glenbuchat manuscripts, con...

Hannay is married to Mary and living peacefully in the Cotswolds, when he receives a request to help solve the mysterious kidnapping of the children of three prominent people. Given nothing to go on but a few mysterious clues, Hannay, assisted by friends like Sandy Arbuthnot, must track down the dastardly villains behind the plot before it's too late...

Europe is close to war and spies are everywhere. Richard Hannay the protagonist and narrator, an expatriate Scot, returns to his new home, a flat in London, after a long stay in Rhodesia, in order to begin a new life. One night he is buttonholed by a stranger, a well-travelled American, who claims to be in fear for his life. The man appears to know of an anarchist plot to destabilise Europe, beginning with a plan to assassinate the Greek Premier, Karolides, during his forthcoming visit to ...