Book excerpt: This is the first book to take a comprehensive view of the historical geography of Scotland since the Union. The period is divided into sections separated by the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War, and each section offers a general view followed by detailed studies giving a balanced coverage of regional and urban-rural criteria, and the economic infrastructure. The book contains a number of original researches and Dr Turnock attempts to set the Scottish experience in a framework of general ideas on modernisation.