Reviews for Highland Heritage: Scottish Americans in the American South

The average rating for Highland Heritage: Scottish Americans in the American South based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2021-01-05 00:00:00 Fodi Alexandra Honestly, if I could give this book 10 stars, I would. I found this book in the bargain section of a Half Price Books, and it has been the best couple of bucks I've spent. Mind you, it is definitely an academic-type book, and I read it slowly over about 8 months, but there is much to take in and digest. The summary here on Goodreads is quite apt, so I won't repeat it here, but this book weaves history together with an anthropological study of modern Highland Games, together with a psychological understanding of the fluidity of identity construction. In more cynical hands, the arbitrary and revisionist nature of modern Highland Games would be a target for mockery, but Ray treats the subject and her subjects with great respect, saying that the constructed nature of identity and traditions does not make them any less valid or valued. Indeed, all traditions are constructed at some point. The important thing is to realize from whence they derive and what purposes they serve, intended and unintended. It is here that my eyes were opened and my mind expanded, as someone who grew up celebrating his Scottish heritage and attends Highland Games to this day. To recognize the selectivity of "Highlandism" (how the Highlands came to stand in for all of Scotland) became redeployed in service of the British Empire and then, latter, the tourist industry is fascinating. To understand how tartan and clan have been expanded in role in Scottish-American identity to provide a sense of kith, kin, and identity rings very true. The way in which particular places in Scotland associated with one's "clan" are described as a "homeland," even though one may have never been there, because this serves a sociological and psychological purpose for Americans with scattered families and little sense of home here makes complete sense. The ways the tradition has selected out the militaristic themes in Highlander history to the exclusion of other, more ordinary aspects of life, is revealing. The ways that Highland Games serve to create "imagined communities" in the increasingly atomized society of today resonates. Also fascinating was learning the differences between Highland Games in the southern U.S. versus the northern U.S. where I grew up. This book was published 20 years ago, so perhaps things have changed, but I heard literally nothing about Culloden growing up, whereas that seems to be the center of Scottish remembrances in the South. Bannockburn was a much stronger theme in the north. Further, the religious tone to Games in the South is intriguing. Lastly, Ray's discussion of the resonance between Southerners' sense of "Lost Cause" in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War and an adopted sense of displacement after Culloden in 1746 was profound... it provided a way to map identity through shifting loyalties: from Scotland, to England, to the Confederacy, to the U.S. And just as Highlanders proved their loyalty to the Crown in military service to the Empire after the defeat at Culloden, so too have Southern military traditions proven their loyalty to the U.S. after the Civil War, notably in the Spanish-American War. Interestingly, Ray makes the argument that this "Lost Cause" connection between Culloden and the U.S. Civil War is not about whiteness but rather about retrieving a kind of idealized masculinity. She also makes no bones about highlighting the residual patriarchal nature still present in contemporary Highland Game remembrances and celebrations. At any rate, hopefully this gives you some sense of the profound ideas surfaced in this book. Agree or disagree with them, they are well-articulated and documented, and always graciously presented. My copy of this book is hopelessly marked up, so thoroughly did I interact with this book.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-05-24 00:00:00 Richard Upchurch I was lucky enough to have Dr. Ray as a professor and this was required reading, but I didn't get to the year, so I read it on the trip home for the summer. It makes a big difference when combined with her teaching style. I was especially interested in her analysis of Scottish heritage in combination with Southern heritage.