Features

In 1748, James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton, an antiquarian who had travelled in Egypt, presented a mummy to the Faculty.

In the latest of our occasional series, Graham Ogilvy discovers a curious legal relic in Dunkeld. What would the Howard League make of it? The strange door into the foundations of Telford's famous bridge across the Tay in Dunkeld is painted an innocuous blue but the heavy iron locks l

Following the conclusion earlier this week of the five-year-long National Socialist Underground (NSU) trial in Munich, In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts) from German-Turkish director Fatih Akin makes particularly timely viewing.

In the latest in our occasional legal heritage series, Graham Ogilvy reflects on the remarkable story of ‘Indian’ Peter Williamson. A document presently on display in the library of the Faculty of Advocates records one of the most shocking episodes of human trafficking in Scottish histor

It was the 86th anniversary of the famous snail in the bottle case — Donoghue v Stevenson — on Saturday.

In the third of our occasional series looking at Scotland's legal heritage, both grand and obscure, Graham Ogilvy appreciates Sir John Steell's statue of George Kinloch in Dundee. George Kinloch is not the only outlaw in Scotland to be publicly commemorated. Stirling's Wallace Memorial, the obelisk

In the second of our new occasional series, Connor Beaton looks at John Maclean's famous speech from the dock. A hundred years ago this week, Scottish socialist John Maclean delivered a famous polemic against capitalism and war from the dock of the High Court in Edinburgh.

In the first of our new occasional series, we look at the Infamous case of the Appin murder. In 1752 Colin Campbell of Glenure, known as the Red Fox, was shot dead in woods near Ballachulish in Argyll. His death led to what is widely regarded as one of Scotland’s most notorious miscarriag

Often mis-attributed to Bismark, the poet John Godfey Saxe is reputed to have said that “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made”. The authors of this book are both lawyers with a wealth of political experience, and this combination makes

Fifty years on from the riots that rocked Detroit in 1967, director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) brings alive one of its most infamous and disputed incidents in an intense and powerful cinematic polemic against racial injustice. We see enough of the rioting to place the f

The Tartan Turban: In Search of Alexander Gardner by John Keay In The Tartan Turban John Keay seeks to rehabilitate the reputation of 19th century adventurer Alexander Gardner, a Scots-American who committed feats of travel far ahead of his time, traversing as he did “remotest Kafiristan&rdquo

The title of this book refers to an incident in April 1945. In response to the denial by SS Guards that there were any Anglo-American prisoners being held at Ravensbrück concentration camp, Mary Lindell, the subject of what might be loosely termed a biography, bravely stepped forward and produced a

The Ruler's Guide by Chinghua Tang In 626CE Li Shimin murdered his brothers and forced his father to abdicate the throne of China’s nascent Tang dynasty, ushering in the country’s golden age and becoming Emperor Tang Taizong, the greatest of China’s Sons of Heaven.

Border by Kapka Kassabova This is a magical book and one of the very, very few to open up the wild and forgotten lands of ancient Thrace that straddle that corner of Europe where Turkey meets Bulgaria and Greece.

Anyone who wants to understand modern Russia and the collective sense of humiliation felt by the Russian people should read this powerful collection of interviews, mainly with Sovoks, those Russians brought up in the Soviet era and who lived through the transition of the crumbling one-party state in