A Nation Changed?

About the Book: 

A Nation Changed? Provides the first detailed and wide-ranging analysis of the SNP in office. It looks at how Scotland has changed and not changed during that time, and the challenges that lie ahead. The book examines the SNP's record, its role as a government and as a party, detailed policy issues such as education and health, the Brexit conundrum and independence.

Offering insights and suggestions for further action and reform, A Nation Changed? brings together an unparalleled range of knowledgeable and expert voices all of whom care deeply about Scotland, public policy, the state of democracy, and the future of our nation. Irrespective of your political views or allegiance, this groundbreaking study offers fresh thinking, food for thought and ideas for debate concerning the changing terrain of Scottish politics.

About the Authors:

GERRY HASSAN is a writer, thinker and commentator, and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Dundee. His primary focus is politics in the UK and Scotland, about which he has written numerous books, including in-depth studies of the Labour Party and SNP, and the creation and progress of the Scottish Parliament. 

He is author of the best-selling and acclaimed Caledonian Dreaming: The Quest for a Different Scotland, published by Luath Press in 2014; Scotland the Bold: How the Nation has Changing and Why There is No Going Back; and co-author of the definitive study of Scottish Labour, The Strange Death of Labour Scotland. He co-edited A Nation Changed?: The SNP and Scotland Ten Years On with Simon Barrow, published by Luath Press in 2017, which is the only study of the SNP’s ten years in office. He has also published the first-ever study of the Labour Party and Britishness: The People’s Flag and the Union Jack, in 2019.

Forthcoming publications include A Better Nation: The Challenges of Scottish Independence (with Simon barrow – Luath Press, 2022), which outlines approaches to the independence debate which are respectful of different views, doubts and ambiguities, asking what kind of society we want to create and how Scotland may want to govern herself. Gerry writes and appears in the media regularly, as well as speaking at events, discussions and conferences in Scotland, the UK and internationally.

SIMON BARROW is Director of the beliefs, ethics and politics think tank Ekklesia. From 2000 to 2005 he was assistant general secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, the official ecumenical body. He has written and contributed to numerous books, recently editing Scotland 2021 (with Mike Small – Bella Caledonia/Ekklesia, 2016), A Nation Changed? The SNP and Scotland Ten Years On (with Gerry Hassan – Luath Press, 2017) and Scotland the Brave? Twenty Years of Change and the Future of the Nation (with Gerry Hassan – Luath Press, 2019).

Forthcoming publications include A Better Nation: The Challenges of Scottish Independence (with Gerry Hassan – Luath Press 2022). He is also co-founder and chair of the Scottish Football Supporters Association, and lives in Leith, having relocated to Scotland from England in 2010.