Alistair Moffat Books in Order

A brisk history of the Edinburgh Fringe, from scrappy beginnings to cultural institution. Moffat focuses on the performers, organizers and improvisation that gave the festival its particular energy.

This history of Kelso follows the town from its earliest settlement through abbey life, border war and later change. Moffat writes with the closeness of someone who knows the area from the inside.

An illustrated biography of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, tracing his work, influences and reputation. Moffat places the architect and designer in the Glasgow art world that shaped him.

Moffat reopens the Arthur question by looking north, toward the old kingdoms of southern Scotland and northern Britain. He uses early texts and place-name evidence to argue for a different map of Arthurian history.

This history of Celtic Britain and Ireland follows the peoples linked by sea rather than separated by it. Moffat travels across coasts and islands to show how water connected language, power and culture.

Moffat tells the long history of the Scottish Borders, from ancient settlement to raids, abbeys and modern identity. It is a book about a region shaped by movement, conflict and stubborn local pride.

After family deaths uncover a long-kept secret, Moffat turns to memoir. He threads that search through an evocative picture of postwar Kelso, childhood, class and the half-hidden histories inside ordinary families.

A visual journey through the Scottish Borders, this book pairs striking images with historical reflection on the region's people and places. It captures both everyday beauty and the weight of local memory.

Moffat goes back before written record to tell the story of the land and peoples who existed before Scotland was Scotland. Ice, stone circles, Picts and early kingdoms all feed into the larger picture.

This regional history follows Newcastle and Gateshead from the end of the Ice Age to the present. Romans, coal, industry, football and reinvention all have a place in the story.

A photographic portrait of East Lothian, paired with historical commentary that places coast, town and farmland in context. It is a quiet, visual introduction to one of Scotland's most distinctive regions.

This city history tracks Edinburgh from prehistory to the present, moving through court politics, Enlightenment culture, everyday neighborhoods and urban change. Moffat keeps the famous figures in view without losing the ordinary citizens.

A clear history of Hadrian's Wall, from Roman ambition and engineering to life on the frontier itself. Moffat asks who built it, why it mattered, and what it meant for the peoples beyond it.

This is a history of Tuscany told through cities, art, rivalry and landscape. Moffat moves from the Etruscans and Romans to the Renaissance and modern tourism without losing the feel of the region itself.

Moffat looks back to the lost kingdoms of early Scotland and northern Britain, before modern borders hardened. Place-names, chronicles and landscape clues help him rebuild a map of vanished powers.

From early origins to the Clearances and beyond, Moffat traces the rise of Highland clan society. He explains kinship, warfare, chiefs and myth without losing sight of the people living inside the system.

This is the story of the raiding families who dominated the Anglo-Scottish Borders for centuries. Moffat brings out their feuds, loyalties and violence, while explaining the harsh world that made them.

Moffat uses DNA evidence to map the peopling of Scotland, from early migrations to later invasions and settlements. It's an accessible blend of genetics, history and questions about who Scots really are.

Traveling the Highland Line, Moffat explores the fault line that separates Highland from Lowland Scotland. Landscape, language and history change step by step, making the border feel physical as well as political.

A people's history of Britain told through DNA. Moffat uses genetic evidence to follow waves of settlement and migration, showing how mixed the islands have always been and how shaky simple ideas of native identity can be.

Part art book and part people's history, this volume guides readers through the Great Tapestry of Scotland and the stories stitched into it. The panels turn centuries of conflict, invention and memory into a visual narrative.

Moffat revisits the 1314 battle with a clear eye for terrain, tactics and politics. He explains how Bannockburn was won, why it mattered, and how legend grew around it.

This local history follows Hawick from prehistory and the Romans to textile mills, Common Riding and modern change. Moffat shows how one Borders town built its character over many centuries.

A sweeping one-volume history of Scotland, from prehistory to the modern age. Moffat keeps the big political story moving while making room for ordinary lives, culture, conflict and the country's uneasy relationship with England.

Following the Highland Line, Moffat explores the boundary where Lowland and Highland Scotland meet. The journey becomes a lively history of geology, language, custom and power on both sides of the divide.

Moffat retraces Scotland's forgotten routes, Roman roads, pilgrim paths, drove roads and more, to see how movement shaped the nation. It's travel writing with a strong feel for buried history and vanished lives.

This collaborative history tells Scotland's story through twenty-five buildings and sites, from prehistory to the modern age. Architecture becomes a way into politics, belief, work and everyday life.

Using large-scale DNA research, Moffat traces the migrations that peopled Britain after the Ice Age. It's a readable history of invasions, settlements and mixing, told through genes as much as kings.

Walking toward Lindisfarne, Moffat follows the life and afterlife of St Cuthbert. The result is part pilgrimage, part history, and part personal meditation on faith, place and mortality.

Moffat follows the routes of the early Irish saints who brought Christianity to Scotland's western edge. Part journey, part history, it explores remote islands, Gaelic memory and the pull of solitude.

Over a year in his own Borders valley, Moffat watches weather, wildlife and the changing light while digging into the deep history beneath his feet. Memoir, nature writing and local history meet on one forgotten track.

Moffat travels along Scotland's Atlantic edge in search of the early saints who sought remoteness there. The book blends island travel, spiritual history and a close feeling for weather, sea and solitude.

In this alternate 1945, Nazi Germany occupies Britain after an atomic strike on London turns the war. Young soldier David Erskine escapes captivity and joins a desperate resistance mission in St Andrews.

This book gathers overlooked, misunderstood and half-lost episodes from Scottish history. Short chapters recover strange events, neglected people and buried stories that do not always make the standard national narrative.

Moffat walks major clan battle sites and uses each journey to reconstruct the fighting that happened there. The book mixes landscape, military history and a strong sense of what was lost after Culloden.

A broad history of the Highlands and Islands, from geological beginnings to the present day. Moffat brings in Picts, Vikings, saints, clan society, Clearances and the daily lives of ordinary people.