Highlander: The History of the Legendary Highland Soldier - Hardcover

The book benefits from exhaustive research, unpublished manuscripts, memoirs, and letters: 'I clove a piece out of one of their hands just as one does an egg for breakfast and saw his white brain exposed.' Such statements by the Highlanders themselves, which Newark unearthed, make for a powerful portrait of ferocity and courage.

Tim Newark is a remarkably gifted storyteller, and in Highlander he really brings these proud soldiers to life.

The Highland soldier is a wonderful theme, and Tim Newark does it full justice. This is a very readable book, full of colour and fascinating anecdotes. --Professor Gary Sheffield, University of Birmingham

An impressively researched and immensely readable celebration of the Highland soldier. --Stuart Reid, author of Culloden 1746 and The Scottish Jacobite Army

Acclaimed historian Tim Newark tells the story of the Highlanders through the words of the soldiers themselves, from diaries, letters, and journals uncovered from archives in Scotland and around the world. At the Battle of Quebec in 1759, only a few years after their defeat at Culloden, the 78th Highlanders faced down the French guns and turned the battle. At Waterloo, High- landers memorably fought alongside the Scots Greys against Napoleon’s feared Old Guard. In the Crimea, the thin red line stood firm against the charging Russian Hussars and saved the day at Balaclava.

Yet this story is also one of betrayal. At Quebec, General Wolfe remarked that, despite the Highlanders’ courage, it was no great mischief if they fall.” At Dunkirk in May 1940, the 51st Regiment was left to defend the SOE evacuation at St Valery; though following D-Day, the Highlanders were at the forefront of the fighting through France. It is all history, now: Over the last decade the historic regiments have been dismantled, despite widespread protest.