In this book, Alistair Moffat brings vividly to life the story of this great nation, from the dawn of prehistory through to the twenty-first century.

Ambitious, richly detailed and highly readable, Scotland: A History From Earliest Times skilfully weaves together a dazzling array of fact and anecdote from a vast range of sources. The result is an imaginative, informative, balanced and varied portrait of Scotland, seen not just through the experience of the kings, saints, warriors, aristocrats and politicians who populate the pages of conventional history books, but also through that of ordinary people who have lived Scotland's history and have played their own important part in shaping its destiny.

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'The great thing about Moffat's account is that, for all its emphasis on uncertainty, it rattles along with complete narrative certainty, to the extent that great events consistently take even a historically literate reader unawares'

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'For Alistair Moffat, history is rooted in the personal. Now ... he has produced what is undoubtedly his most ambitious work. Scotland: A History From Earliest Times encompasses 500 million years, from when the tectonic plates were shifting to form the land mass we recognize today to the referendum and its aftermath'

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'Moffat plunders the facts and fables to create a richly-detailed and comprehensive analysis of a nation's past and references a huge number of sources'

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'[T]his is a very readable, well-researched and fluent account'

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'A very readable, well-researched and fluent account'

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'With his instinctive flair and accessible style, Moffat gets right under the skin of the country'