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In a fresh approach to Scotland’s past, five Scottish writers – Alexander McCall Smith, Alistair Moffat, James Robertson, James Crawford and the poet Kathleen Jamie – explore 25 buildings, or remains of buildings, across the country. Starting at Geldie Burn in the Cairngorms with its traces of prehistoric habitations, they visit Iona’s ancient abbey, medieval castles, and modern buildings ranging from the Glasgow School of Art to Sullom Voe oil terminal – structures whose stories together create a new narrative of Scottish history.

In addition to capturing the rolling landscapes of the border region in all seasons, and the sheep, ponies, cattle and deer that inhabit it, this collection contains picturesque views of Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott; towns such as Hawick, Galashiels and Jedburgh; and portraits of the area's isolated and romantic castles.

The 'Kingdom' of Fife boasts Scotland's oldest university and the home of golf at St Andrews as well as picturesque fishing villages, ancient monuments and a beautiful rural heartland. Liz Hanson's photographs range from views of the Forth Bridge across the estuary and the mining and manufacturing towns around Dunfermline to the world-famous golfing country of the east coast.

For Alistair Moffat Edinburgh is quite simply ‘the most beautiful city in the world’, and Liz Hanson’s photographs show how he might have come to that conclusion. Moffat, a former Director of the Edinburgh Festival, explains how geology and history made the city as he traces its history from ancient volcanoes to fringe musicians performing in the street; while Liz Hanson’s camera peers into medieval closes as well as looking out over the Firth of Forth from the city’s lofty crags.

The northern border of East Lothian faces the Forth Estuary and the North Sea and this portfolio explores the 40-mile coastline, encompassing the harbour towns of Cockenzie, North Berwick and Dunbar and the famous golf links of Musselburgh and Gullane, as well as the rural hinterland and the Lammermuir Hills to the south.

Population genetics and the study of ancestral DNA are beginning to reveal the historical information hidden inside our own bodies. Moffat has produced a revolutionary new history of Britain, eschewing the deeds of monarchs and politicians in favour of the remarkable stories that genetics can tell about the origins of our lineages and the travels of our forebears around the world. (Previously sold in Postscript as a hardback edition titled The British: A Genetic Journey.)

The town of Hawick in the Scottish Borders is notable for its annual Common Riding, which commemorates the fight at Hornshole in 1514 when local young men scattered an English raiding party. Taking the town’s story back to prehistoric times and the coming of the Romans, Moffat traces its growth, the rise of its textile trade and the radical changes that have given modern-day Hawick its unique character.

Alistair Moffat offers a comprehensive and very readable history of Scotland, drawing on sources ranging from the lives of saints and medieval chronicles to reports of sporting events, contemporary popular culture and the independence referendum of 2014. Throughout the narrative Moffat uses text boxes to profile personalities including John Capellanus, Robert Adam and Jo Grimond, or to describe events such as the fate of the Blessing of Burntisland (a ferry) in 1633, and the Lockerbie disaster of 1988.

The year of Scotland's referendum, 2014 was also the 700th anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn, when 'a very different sort of campaign on the issue of Scotland's independence came to its climax'. Alistair Moffat follows in detail the events of those two days in June 1314, and captures all the fear, heroism, confusion and desperation of medieval warfare as he describes the tactics and manoeuvres that led to a stunning victory for the heavily outnumbered Scots.

Since the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age, Britain has been repopulated entirely by immigrants. The stories of the earliest settlers were lost in millennia of prehistory, but geneticists are now able to uncover these ancient ancestors' geographical origins by analysing modern Britons' DNA. With genetic insights complementing archaeological evidence, this book forms a new people's history of the British which tracks the epic journeys of the pioneering migrants.