Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe 1600–1746 (review)

For some years there has been a rising interest in the Scottish contribution to the making of an early modern Atlantic economy, and the British Empire. The work of Tom Devine, Scotland’s Empire, 1600–1815 (2003) might be mentioned as an example. Overwhelmingly, the Scottish success appears to be linked to the role of Scottish networking strategies. Steve Murdoch’s book is situated in this context, but its scope is different. It focuses primarily on Scottish networks in northern Europe, outside of the British Empire. Murdoch’s ‘Northern Europe’ is the Scandinavian kingdoms, Sweden and Denmark-Norway; however, the book also contains material on Scottish communities in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia and Prussia. Regarding the chronological scope, the focus is on the period before the Union, only the concluding chapter – a fascinating survey of Jacobite networking in Sweden and Russia – refers to years after 1707.

The book consists of three sections, each including three chapters. The first section provides a general survey of what network and identity means when we are studying Scots abroad. This section reviews Scottish ‘multiple’ identities, with focus on the role of family, kin and kith, on attachment to place and nation, and on the role of confession. Social network is the starting point of the study, however; in contrast to much social network analysis, Murdoch does not see network primarily as a theoretical concept. Instead, the different forms and shapes of Scottish networks are illustrated in a number of empirical cases. Particularly fruitful appears the institution of fictive or assumed kinship that linked Scots with ties stronger than friendship, and perhaps even stronger than family. Confessional belonging, on the other hand, was not so significant for Scottish distant communities in Murdoch’s view. The second section provides an analysis of Scottish networks in the economic sphere. Using qualitative and quantitative evidence, the author unveils Scots as important merchants, financiers, industrialists and manufacturers in Sweden and Denmark-Norway. Murdoch’s focus on mercantile networks, instead of the traditional history of commodity flows and trade policy, clearly demonstrates the benefit of a network perspective. It unveils relations, but also money and credit flows, gifts and donations, which are invisible in traditional history of commerce. For example, chapter 5 shows that Scottish entrepreneurs and their networks (e.g. the Lyall family’s iron cartel or Daniel Young Leijonanckar in cloth manufacture) did play a crucial role in the transformation of metal and manufacturing sectors in Sweden. In the Swedish historiography, by contrast, this transformation has been ascribed to Dutch and German entrepreneurs. Chapter 6 unveils hidden commercial networks between Sweden, Denmark, the Dutch Republic, and Britain, and it attempts to assess the Scottish contribution to the economic developments in the Baltic and North Sea areas. The third section of the book is devoted to three case-studies: espionage or diplomatic networks, the network and activities of John Durie, and Jacobite networking in Sweden and Russia between 1689 and 1746, including an intriguing study of Scottish Free Masons and the Order of Toboso.

What was the main glue of Scottish networks abroad and did Scottish networking differ from that of other nations or ethnic groups? First, Murdoch stresses the significance of kith and kin identity, and an early modern ‘national’ identity, expressed in loyalty to the House of Stuart, to Scotland or to Stuart Britain. Confessional belonging and social status did not play such an important role. Second, it is also apparent that Scottish identity primarily had a ‘network’ character. It was not identity ascribed from above, as for example in modern national identities. Moreover, it should be stressed that Scottish early modern identity gained strength from multiplicity. The question of the uniqueness of Scottish networking is not answered. But it seems that Scots differed from other commercial communities and national trading networks, such as the Dutch or Huguenots, in that their identity rested on kith...