ISLES OF HOME SEVENTY YEARS OF SHETLAND


GORDON DONALDSON


Gordon Donaldson, one of Scotland's foremost 20th Century historians, was a Shetlander by ancestry, and he writes here of the Shetland he came to know from visits made over a period of more than seventy years.


Gordon Donaldson was Professor of Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh from 1963 until 1979 and published over thirty books. He was the general editor of the four-volume The Edinburgh History of Scotland and himself wrote Volume III, Scotland: James V to James VII.


Those of his books which deal with Shetland's history are Shetland Life under Earl Patrick (1958) and Northwards by Sea (1978). He also edited the texts of the two Court Books of Shetland which survive from the early 17th Century.


This book is an extensive revision of his earlier Isles of Home: Sixty years of Shetland (1983) and is lavishly illustrated with many additional photographs. It shows how he maintained his interest in Shetland until his death in March 1993 and expands on his love of ships which he was able to develop up to the time of his last visit in 1992.