Dr Allan Kennedy

I joined the University of Dundee in August 2017.

My research focuses on the social and political history of early modern Scotland, with a particular focus on the later seventeenth century. My initial interests, informing my prize-winning first book, Governing Gaeldom: The Scottish Highlands and the Restoration State, 1660-1688 (2014), were in the linkages between Highland and Lowland Scotland during the reigns of Charles II and James VII, a problem I approached within the broader paradigms of centre/periphery interaction and ‘state formation’ in early modern Europe. My research, and resulting publications, has tended to downplay the distinctiveness of the Highland experience, attempting instead to demonstrate the deep linkages (political, social, economic, religious and cultural) between Highlanders and the Scottish state.

Although I retain a strong interest in Highland history, my research subsequently broadened out to incorporate the treatment of outsiders or ‘others’ in the early modern world. In particular, I have explored the experiences of Scots living in early modern England, assessing what this particular migratory movement can tell us about the emergence and nature of ‘Great Britain’ in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I have also looked into Scottish criminal justice, especially in terms of asking how criminals were treated and what this can reveal about the ordering structures and assumptions of Scottish society. This led to my second monograph, Serious Crime in Late-Seventeenth Century Scotland (2025). Finally, I am interested in the history of the Scottish Privy Council, and I served as Project Manger on the Leverhulme-Trust funded Scottish Privy Council Project (2020-3).

• Crime
• History
• Scotland