Arts of Independence

Arts of Independence takes a hard look at the most neglected aspect of the argument for Scotland's distinctive national identity: the arts. The proposition is that music, painting, architecture, and, pre-eminently, literature are the fuel and fire that makes imagination possible. Following the success of Arts of Resistance, this new work by the same authors takes the argument over Scottish independence out of the hands of politicians and economists and beyond the petty squabbles of party politics. Moffat and Riach contend that health and trade are matters of material fact that need to be enlivened by imagination. For them the arts are not democratic or rational, but it is how we organise society that can help us approach what they have to give.