The Highland Clearances are a well-documented episode in Scotland's past but they were not unique. The process began in the Scottish Lowlands nearly a century before, when tens of thousands of people - significantly more than were later exiled form the Highlands - were moved from the land by estate owners who replaced them with livestock or enclosed fields of crops. These Clearances undeniably shaped the appearance of the Scottish landscape as it is today as they swept aside a traditional way of life, causing immense upheaval for rural dwellers, many of whom moved to the new towns and cities or emigrated. Based on pioneering historical research, this book tells the story of the Lowland Clearances, establishing them as a wider part of the process of Clearance which affected the whole country and changed the face of Scotland forever.

This revolution of 'improvement' helped shape the landscape we accept today as the Scottish countryside. But it also swept aside a traditional way of life, causing immense upheaval and trauma for rural dwellers, many of whom moved to the new towns and cities or emigrated. In the later eighteenth century the simple act of losing land and becoming landless was much more significant for large numbers of people in Lowland society than it was for those in the Gaelic- speaking Highlands of Scotland. The Lowland Clearances also set in train the trend of depopulation which continues to affect Scotland to this day; the number of people who left the Lowlands during the agricultural revolution far exceeded the number exiled from the Highlands.

And yet, compared to the Highlands, very little has been written or published about the Lowland Clearances. This book, based on the highly acclaimed BBC documentary series, aims to redress that imbalance. It does not deny the clearances in the Highlands and Islands but reflects pioneering historical research which establishes them as part of a wider process of clearance which affected the whole of Scotland.