Updated: David Alston and Patricia Macdonald win at Scotland's National Book Awards

David Alston's Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean took the big prize at Scotland's National Book Awards presented by the Saltire Society on December 8th. It was named Scottish Book of the Year 2022 after triumphing in the History Book of the Year category. Patricia Macdonald won the Research Book of the Year prize for Surveying the Anthropocene: Environment and Photography Now, a co-publication with our partner Studies in Photography. These wins are the culmination of a bumper year for EUP at the Saltire Awards, which saw five books shortlisted and the company shortlisted for Publisher of the Year. Congratulations to all!

History Book of the Year & Scottish Book of the Year 2022 - WINNER

David Alston’s Slaves and Highlanders is a revelatory history of the links between the Scottish Highlands and Caribbean plantations. Alston said, “I am honoured by the choice of Slaves and Highlanders as one of the books shortlisted for this prestigious award – and especially pleased because I believe this choice reflects a growing interest in the difficult but important histories which Scotland shares with the Caribbean.”

Tom Dark, Head of Editorial (Books), said "We’re thrilled that this revelatory, thought-provoking book has been honoured in this way. David Alston’s thorough research in both Highland and Caribbean archives makes this a compelling, convincing and highly readable work of local and global history. This topic is of vital importance to understanding our shared past and the contemporary legacies of slavery; we feel that David Alston has done justice both to that past and those legacies with which we continue to wrestle.” 

Research Book of the Year - WINNER

Patricia Macdonald’s visually stunning Surveying the Anthropocene: Environment and Photography Now is a co-publication with Studies in Photography. She says “I am honoured to hear this excellent news, and especially pleased that the significance of the book’s cross-disciplinary overview of the spectrum of insights on the Anthropocene from its eminent artist-photographer and writer contributors is being highlighted during this moment of crucial, back-to-back UN climate and biodiversity conferences, both focussed on improving responses to our current precarious environmental situation.”

Alexander Hamilton, chair and series editor for Studies in Photography, said “ The book presents a compelling, in-depth but accessible, international survey of a broad spectrum of approaches, both global and local, to the present interlinked crises of climate, biodiversity and environmental justice by some of the best artist-photographers working worldwide today, with a strong representation from Scotland, contexted by essays from illuminating cultural writers. The range of responses to these crises of the Anthropocene, and stories of human ingenuity in addressing these, are explored in an open and cross-disciplinary way that is of considerable relevance today and for our future, in Scotland and worldwide.” 

Shortlisted for History Book of the Year

Lachlan Gow Munro, whose R. B. Cunninghame Graham and Scotland is the first biography of a remarkable twentieth-century individual, says ‘I am particularly gratified that the shortlisting of my book will help draw attention to one of Scotland’s sadly neglected sons. Cunninghame Graham was unique in the annals of Scottish political history and literary artistry. He was a radical and a patriot, but a true humanitarian and internationalist; an original literary stylist admired by many, but now read by few; a man who crossed borders, but whose evocations of Scottish landscape and character remain hidden gems of Scottish literature.”

Shortlisted for Research Book of the Year

Stana Nenadic, author of the fascinating monograph Craftworkers in Nineteenth Century Scotland, which examines artisans and their skills on the verge of the industrial age, says “It is an honour and such a pleasure to be short listed for one of Scotland's prestigious national book awards.”

Craig Beveridge’s Recovering Scottish History is the fruit of work in a largely uncharted archive. He says, “My book offers new perspectives on how the Scots perceived their past in the second half of the nineteenth century and, as the short-listing has recognised, these are founded on original research within the largely unexplored Burton archive in the National Library of Scotland and on the reception of his History of Scotland as revealed in a range of contemporary publications and manuscript sources. I am sure that the Society's recognition will attract a wider audience for the book's challenge to widely-held assumptions among historians concerning the Scots' negative views of their national history in the period. I have appreciated the support of Edinburgh University Press in publishing the results of my research as an independent scholar.”