The Edge of the Plain shortlisted as Non-Fiction Book of the Year at Scotland's National Book Awards

James Crawford’s The Edge of The Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World has been shortlisted for Best Non-Fiction Book at Scotland’s National Book Awards.

Sarah Mason, Executive Director of The Saltire Society, said: “The 2023 shortlists for Scotland’s National Book Awards show the outstanding talent, scale, diversity and excellence that we are so lucky to have in Scotland today.  These Awards have a proud history of celebrating the extraordinary richness in the work of our authors, publishers and designers and we congratulate everyone who have been shortlisted this year. "

The Edge of the Plain - Paperback Publication

The paperback edition of The Edge of the Plain: Howe Borders Make and Break Our World was published today, 4 August 2023. Here’s what reviewers have said already:

“Excellent” - Guardian

“Ambitious” - New York Times

“Fascinating” - CNN

“Eye-opening” - Literary Review

“Lyrical” - The Washington Post

“Powerful” - David Rooney

“Vital” - Publishers Weekly

"Timely and valuable" - Library Journal

“Erudite and engaging” - Irish Times

“Beguiling” - Slate

“Beautifully observed” - Gavin Francis

"Thoughtful" - Kirkus Reviews

Wild History: Journeys Into Lost Scotland - Out Now

James Crawford’s new book ‘Wild History: Journeys Into Lost Scotland’ is out now (May 2023).

You scramble up over the dunes of an isolated beach. You climb to the summit of a lonely hill. You pick your way through the eerie hush of a forest. And then you find them. The traces of the past. Perhaps they are marked by a tiny symbol on your map, perhaps not. There are no plaques to explain their fading presence before you, nothing to account for what they once were – who made them, lived in them or abandoned them. Now they are merged with the landscape. They are being reclaimed by nature. They are wild history.

In this book acclaimed author and presenter James Crawford introduces many such places all over the country, from the ruins of prehistoric forts and ancient, arcane burial sites, to abandoned bothies and boathouses, and the derelict traces of old, faded industry.

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TIME Magazine - Why borders won't survive the century to come

‘Walls appeal to voter bases who want to see strength on the frontiers’ writes James Crawford in TIME magazine. ‘Meanwhile, the real bordering increasingly happens elsewhere, far beyond the lines of national territory…’

Read the full article  →

The Guardian, Big Idea - 'Do Nations Really Need Borders?'

In an era of global heating, fixed boundaries may soon be unsustainable. What are the alternatives? Read James Crawford’s ‘Big Idea’ in the Guardian.

Last November, Simon Kofe, the foreign minister of Tuvalu – a nation formed out of a series of low-lying atolls in the South Pacific – addressed the Glasgow climate conference from a wooden lectern. Exactly what you’d expect at an international summit. Except that the lectern, and Kofe in his suit and tie, were part-submerged by several feet of ocean. In his speech, which had been pre-recorded on location in Tuvalu, he told delegates that his nation was “living the reality” of climate change. “When the sea is rising around us all the time,” he said, “climate mobility must come to the forefront.” . . .

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Canongate signs 'remarkable and timely' book on borders by James Crawford

Canongate has landed James Crawford's The Edge of the Plain, a blend of history, travel writing and reportage tracing the evolution and cultural significance of land borders. 

Simon Thorogood, editorial director, acquired world all language rights from Maggie Pearlstine Associates. US rights have been pre-empted by W W Norton. 

In the book, Crawford argues that society's enduring obsession with borders has brought us to a crisis point: that people are entering the endgame of a process that began thousands of years ago when we first started dividing up the Earth. The book takes in the history of borders — from the earliest marker which denoted the edge of one land and the beginning of the next, to the walls going up around the world today. It is a story told in four parts, each exploring a different aspect of the lifecycle and experience of borders all around the world and throughout history — how they are created, how they can change and evolve, how they are crossed or breached, and, finally, how they are overcome or broken.

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Scotland From the Sky - Series 3 Dates Announced

Series 3 of Scotland from the Sky will begin on Monday 1 November, at 9pm on BBC One Scotland.

In the first episode of the new series, presenter James Crawford explores how we have managed to surmount the challenges of our tough terrain to connect communities and places across the centuries. He takes to the air in a seaplane, landing in Loch Ness to reveal its geological secrets, uncovers traces of our Viking past, explores how we have crossed the treacherous Pentland Firth and flies above the stunning West Highland line. Finally, he visits the Highland crofters, going where no crofter has gone before, at Scotland's first spaceport.

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Dark Travellers - The Rise of Scottish Crime Writing

A new short film, written and presented by writer and broadcaster James Crawford, charts the rise of Scottish crime fiction and sheds new light on the success of the UK’s bestselling genre. Including never before seen interviews with some of the biggest names in crime writing, it traces the origins of one of key influences on all of their work. 

Produced by Publishing Scotland to mark the start of Bloody Scotland, the Crime writing festival which takes in place in Stirling each September, and the 2021 Frankfurt International Book Fair, Dark Travellers – the Rise of Scottish Crime Writing is a 22-minute documentary film featuring seven award-winning authors talking on the subject of crime writing today: Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Denise Mina, Abir Mukherjee, Christopher Brookmyre, Marisa Haetzman and Graeme Macrae Burnet. 

James Crawford said: “All of the authors interviewed in this film keep coming back to the idea of the crime novel as being the ideal space to explore the human condition. This, it seems, is at the core of what makes crime writing so popular – a desire to work beneath the surface, to uncover the lies we tell and the secrets we keep; to explore the extremes of personality or circumstance that drive people to commit crimes, or even to kill. And is there something in the air, or the water, or the landscape that makes Scotland’s crime writers so adept at this? Much of their success is, I’m sure, down to their being so skilled at unpeeling these layers of personality, to expose the raw nerves of identity, and truth.”

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Scotland From the Sky - Series Three

Filming is now complete on the third series of Scotland from the Sky. Look out for three new, one-hour documentaries, to be broadcast in the near future on BBC One Scotland and BBC Two nationwide.

Scotland from the Sky Series Two - First Full UK Broadcast

Following straight on from the broadcast of Series One of Scotland from the Sky, BBC Two will now be showing Series Two on Saturday nights at 7.30pm, starting this weekend, 24 October.

The documentary series, which was shortlisted for ‘Best Documentary Specialist Factual: History’ category at the 2019 Royal Television Society Scotland Awards, has consistently been one of the top-rated programmes on the channel on Saturday nights.

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