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In recent years scholars have begun to ask new and exciting questions about the lives of the ordinary people of Scotland in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution. The essays in this volume, written by some of the foremost figures in Scottish social history, cover many significant themes in pre-industrial Scottish society: poverty, diet, social organisation and change, urban development, population mobility and the status of women. The editors have provided an introductory overview of Scottish society analysing such topics as population, social structure, law and order, religion and popular culture. The approach throughout is a comparative one aimed at highlighting both the similarities and the distinctive features of Scottish society when compared with those of the rest of the British Isles and continental Europe. Two concluding chapters provide insights from specialists on Irish and English society into how Scotland fits into the context of 'British' social development.