A Fire Bell in the Past: The Missouri Crisis at 200, Volume I, Western Slavery, National Impasse, Jeffrey L. Pasley, John Craig Hammond

This book is the first detailed attempt to challenge these beliefs. Written by the foremost scholars in the field, with findings based on sustained archival research, the volume systematically peels away the mythology and radically revises the traditional picture. In doing so the contributors come to a number of surprising conclusions.

Topics covered include national amnesia and slavery, the impact of profits from slavery on Scotland, Scots in the Caribbean sugar islands, compensation paid to Scottish owners when slavery was abolished, domestic controversies on the slave trade, the role of Scots in slave trading from English ports and much else.

The book is a major contribution to Scottish history, to studies of the Scots global diaspora and to the history of slavery within the British Empire. It will have wide appeal not only to scholars and students but to all readers interested in discovering an untold aspect of Scotland's past.

• The first ever systematic study of Scotland's slavery past
• Contains many new research conclusions on a controversial subject
• Written by the most active scholars in the field

David Alston is an independent researcher living in the Highlands Sir Thomas Martin Devine is Sir William Fraser Professor of Scottish History and Palaeography Emeritus in the University of Edinburgh Nicholas Draper is Co-Director of the Structure and Significance of British Caribbean Slave-ownership 1763-1833 project at University College London Eric J. Graham is an Honorary Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies at the University of Edinburgh Catherine Hall is Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History at University College London Philip D. Morgan is Harry C. Black Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University Baltimore USA Michael Morris is Lecturer in English Literature and Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University Stephen Mullen is Research Associate in History, University of Glasgow Stuart M. Nisbet is a freelance researcher and Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Humanities, University of Glasgow Suzanne Schwarz is Professor of History at the University of Worcester Iain Whyte is an Honorary Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies at the University of Edinburgh