In the 270th anniversary year of the battle of Culloden, the last major military engagement fought in Britain, these two books offered reappraisals of that culminating event of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Culloden has always drawn attention as the central moment in the mythology of Scottish independence, including the destruction of the power of Highland Clans and the image of their way of life in the popular imagination.

Both books provide context for an engagement that historian Murray Pittock (Univ. of Glasgow) calls "one of the decisive battles of the world, and one of the most powerful in its continuing influence on cultural memory" (1). The authors take distinctly different approaches to their subject. Pittock is a leading historian of Jacobitism; his work is scholarly and analytical, and shows a full conversance, for example, with the new archeology of the battlefield and discussions of the battle's place in the cultural history of Scotland and Britain. Trevor Royle is, by contrast, a journalist specializing in international affairs and a prolific author of popular military histories; he sees Culloden within the framework of eighteenth-century geopolitical conflicts between Britain and France and the emergence of Britain's global empire.

Trevor Royle's study of Culloden differs sharply from Pittock's. He dispenses with the 1745 rising and indeed the battle itself in less than a third of his narrative. The rest of his book concerns the subsequent War of the Austrian Succession and Seven Years War. In so apportioning, Royle casts Culloden as just one of several significant battles in France and Britain's ongoing war for global supremacy.[3] He also carefully tracks the careers of British officers like James Wolfe, whom the Duke of Cumberland gave commands during the suppression of the 1745 rebellion; these men went on to achieve great success and lasting fame. Royle maintains that Culloden and the campaign in the Scottish Highlands not only made some of these men's reputations, but were also pivotal moments in the making of the British Empire:

Royle's twelve chapters offer a good, reliable history of the wars that ended in 1763 with the resounding British victories that led to the Treaty of Paris. Separate chapters covering the fighting in Europe, North America, and India feature first-rate accounts of the major battles at Plassey (23 June 1757), Minden (1 Aug. 1759), and Quebec (or Plains of Abraham, 13 Sept. 1759). One wonders, however, why Royle chose to entitle his book "Culloden." He certainly demonstrates that the Jacobite campaign was critical in the larger story of eighteenth-century Anglo-French conflict, but it is doubtful that the battle on the Plains of Abraham was at all influenced by the brief engagement on Culloden Moor.

Both of these books are solid additions to the scholarly literature on their subject and should be read by all serious students of military history. But for those seeking a fuller, more discerning account of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, Pittock's Culloden is the clear choice.