Richard D. Oram, "A Land Won from Waste: Scotland AD 400-1400" (Birlinn, 2025)

New Books in Ancient History

Drawing together the evidence of archaeology, palaeoecology, climate history and the historical record, this first environmental history of Scotland explores the interaction of human populations with land, waters, forests and wildlife.

A Land Won From Waste: Scotland AD 400–1400 (John Donald/Birlinn, 2025) by Professor Richard Oram takes the reader from the climatic highs of the Late Iron Age to the depths of the war-torn and plague-ravaged fourteenth century. Departing from traditional frameworks that divide Scotland’s history into periods based on kings’ reigns or major political events, discussion instead follows the major shifts in climate that divide these fourteen centuries into epochs, each with its own distinct characteristics. Starting amidst the fields and forests shaped across the eight millennia of Scotland’s prehistory, where we encounter the imprint of past generations of hunters and gatherers, farmers and fishermen, as well as the legacies of climate impacts and pathogens, the book explores the depths of the Late Antique Little Ice Age and the long climb back to the ‘Golden Age’ of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Medieval Climate Anomaly, to end with the slide through crop-failure, famine, war and disease of what is reputed to be the ‘worst century in human history’.

Also listen to Dr. Oram’s previous New Books Network interview on the “sequel” to this book, covering the period 1400-1850: Where Men No More May Reap or Sow: The Little Ice Age.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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