History of Scotland

The BBC's Neil Oliver has been commissioned to present a series (or two) of programmes on the history of Scotland. I've sat through three of them, and am far from impressed. Mr Oliver, who first rose to prominence as presenter of the Coast programmes, tends to digress, focus on minor details and omit the important. A previous episode appeared to be more about the American war of independence than about Scotland - for sure, Scots had some part to play in that, naturally. But it was relevent to American history, not really to Scottish. Last night's episode, on the 20th century, had more holes in it than a Swiss cheese, omitting such major events like the Glasgow rising of 1919, the Clydebank Blitz of '41, and the accession of the SNP to government - after Mr Oliver spent half the program charting the party's fortunes in the 20th century.

History is a contentious subject, and my grasp of Scottish history is not good enough to really be able to write a well-founded critique of Mr Oliver's series. Others have done that elsewhere. I can only repeat what I started my post with: far from impressed.

Credit: Image above courtesy BBC