Introduction A Global Force: War, Identities and Scotland’s Diaspora

A comparative study of Scotland’s global military diaspora, focusing on the impact of the Great War. Between the 1820s and 1914 over two million people emigrated from Scotland, settling primarily in North America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. One of the most distinctive ways in which the influence of the Scottish diaspora overseas expressed itself was the formation of military units which identified with Scotland. This volume provides a comparative overview of the nineteenth century emergence of military Scottishness and explores how the construction and performance of Scottish military identity has evolved in different Commonwealth countries over the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In particular, it looks at the ways in which Scottish volunteer regiments variously sought to draw upon, align themselves with or, at certain key moments, redefine the assertions of martial identity which Highland regiments represented.