Tom Devine

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Professor Tom M Devine (Thomas Martin Devine) OBE FRSE FBA (born Motherwell, Scotland 1945) is a well-known and widely published Scottish historian. His main research interest is Scottish history since c.1600. He is widely regarded as the pre-eminent authority on the history of modern Scotland.[1]

In April 2005, he was appointed to the Sir William Fraser Chair of Scottish History and Palaeography at the University of Edinburgh, widely acknowledged to be the world’s premier Chair of Scottish History, which he took up in January 2006. He was previously Glucksman Professor of Irish and Scottish Studies and was Director of the AHRB Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen from 1998 to 2006.

Professor Devine was educated at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, from 1964 to 1968, and graduated with first class honours in Economic History, followed by a PhD and D.Litt. He rose through the academic ranks from assistant lecturer to Reader, Professor, Head of Department, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He was Vice Principal of the University from 1993 to 1997. In 1998 he accepted the Directorship of the world's first centre of advanced research in Irish and Scottish Studies at Aberdeen, which was formally inaugurated by President Mary McAleese of Ireland on St Andrew's Day 1999.

He is the author or editor of around thirty books on topics such as emigration, famine, identity, Scottish transatlantic commercial links, urban history, the Scottish Highlands and rural social history. The Scottish Nation (1999), became an international best seller and for a time, even outsold the adventures of Harry Potter in Scotland. He has won all three major prizes for Scottish historical research, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the British Academy. Professor Devine holds the honorary degrees of D.Litt. from Queen's University Belfast and the University of Abertay Dundee and the hon. degree of D.Univ from Strathclyde,his alma mater. He was awarded the first ever John Aikenhead Medal for services to Scottish education by the Institute of Contemporary Scotland 2006 and in the same year Bell College conferred on him an Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his contributions to Scottish culture. In 2000 he was awarded the Royal Gold Medal, Scotland's highest academic accolade, by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005 was appointed OBE in the New Years Honours List.]. His major work, Scotland's Empire was published in 2003 and formed the basis of a six-part BBC2 series.

Prof Devine's most recent publications are Clearance and Improvement:Land,Power and People in Scotland 1700-1900(2006) and an updated edition of The Scottish Nation 1700 to 2007(2006)

Tom Devine is a member of the Research Advisory Committee of the Leverhulme Trust and holds visiting Professorships at the University of North Carolina and the University of Guelph, Canada.

[edit] Bibliography

• The Transformation of Scotland; The Economy since 1700 (co-author with Clive Lee and George Peden), Edinburgh University Press, 2005 ISBN 0-7486-1433-8
• Scotland's Empire, 1600-1815, Penguin Books, 2003
• Scotland's Shame?: Bigotry and Sectarianism in Modern Scotland (Editor), Mainstream Publishing, 2000 ISBN 1-84018-330-6
• The Scottish Nation: 1700-2000, Penguin, 1999 ISBN 0-14-023004-1
• Eighteenth Century Scotland: New Perspectives (co-editor with J.R. Young, 1999
• People and society in Scotland 1760-1830 (co-editor with R. Mitchison), John Donald, 1998
• Eighteenth-century Scotland (co-editor with J.R. Young), Tuckwell, 1998
• Scotland in the Twentieth Century (co-editor with Richard J. Finlay, Edinburgh University Press, 1996
• Exploring the Scottish Past, 1995
• The Transformation of Rural Scotland: social change and the agrarian economy, 1660-1815, 1994
• Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland, 1770-1914, (Editor) 1994
• Scottish Elites 1994
• From Clanship to Crofters' War, 1994
• Scottish Emigration and Scottish Society (Editor), 1992
• Irish Immigrants and Scottish Society in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, (Editor), 1991.
• Conflict and Stability in Scottish Society, 1700-1850 (Editor), 1990
• The Great Highland Famine, 1988.
• People and Society in Scotland , Volume 1, 1760-1830 (co-editor with R. Mitchison), 1988
• Farm Servant and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, 1984.
• A Scottish firm in Virginia 1767-1777, William Cunninghame and Co., 1982.
• Temporary Migration and the Scottish Highlands in the 19th century, 1979.
• Lairds and Improvement in the Scotland of the Enlightenment, 1978.
• The Tobacco Lords: A Study of the Tobacco Merchants of Glasgow and their Trading Activities c. 1740-90, 1975.
• The Economy of Scotland under James VI, 1971.