Deserves to be read by everyone interested in the future of the United Kingdom Andrew Marr The Sunday TimesThere can be no relationship in Europes history more creative significant vexed and uneasy than that between Scotland and England. From the Middle Ages onwards the island of Britain has been shaped by the unique dynamic between Edinburgh and London exchanging inhabitants monarchs money and ideas sometimes in a spirit of friendship and at others in a spirit of murderous dislike.Tom Devines seminal new book explores this extraordinary history in all its ambiguity from the seventeenth century to the present. When not undermining each other with invading armies both Scotland and England have broadly benefitted from each others presence indeed for long periods of time nobody questioned the union which joined them.