After Independence

Edited by Gerry Hassan and James Mitchell

(Luath Press, £12.99)

ALL the 24 essays in this volume deal with some aspect of the debate raging on Scottish independence in the run-up to the referendum on September 18.

The majority are by academics, although there are also contributions from journalists, members of the legal profession, the business world, charities and trade unions.

The topics covered are wide-ranging — the nature of sovereignty and independent statehood, the economics of independence, the issue of Scottish tax powers, social security, public service reform, energy, Trident, Ireland, women and independence and culture.

As the editors point out, the debate is far more than one about whether Scotland should have a seat at the UN between Saudi Arabia and Senegal.

It is fundamentally a debate about the kind of country and society Scots want to live in.

The books aims to encourage those with a stake in the issue to “listen and learn from those with whom we may disagree” and to this end the contributors have been asked to “rise above partisan and binary thinking.”

According to the editors, for all the Yes/No dimensions of the forthcoming vote and the reality that some of the loudest voices in this debate will be the most simplistic, “underneath this there is a very different Scotland, which is by far the majority and the critical constituency.

“It is one of movement, porous boundaries and fluid identities, resistant to labelling and point-scoring, and which wants to be treated like adults and see a serious debate about Scotland’s future, one which allows for ambiguity, uncertainty and a sense of hope.”

Despite the varied and well-qualified cohort of contributors, the book doesn’t quite succeed in achieving the advertised aim of providing an “informed guide” for anyone on either side of the debate.

The reason for this lies not with the essays themselves but with the organisation of the volume.

Even those most passionately interested in the independence debate are unlikely to want to read through the 24 essays from start to finish and the majority of potential readers are likely to have a number of individual issues as their areas of main concern.

However, without an index such readers are left stranded by the editors and publishers.

No reader with a special interest will want to flick through 310 pages looking for references to the subject.

Indexes are inexpensive and easy to produce and with the sort of computing facilities routinely available in today’s publishing world there’s no excuse for their omission.