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In Clear, the third novel from Carys Davies, an impoverished presbyterian minister reluctantly takes part in the Highland Clearances, a series of mass evictions that took place in the north of Scotland between 1750 and 1850, driven in part by the restructuring of British society during the Industrial Revolution and the collapse of the traditional clan system that had for centuries governed Highland life. The impact on Scotland was profound—and the aftershocks still felt to this day. As the historian Tom Devine has written, the events have become "firmly embedded in the cultural identity of the nation."
The Clearances broadly took place over two waves. During the first, which lasted from around 1750 to 1815, Highland landowners decided to take individual crofts—small plots of arable land held in tenancy—and combine them into larger, more profitable sheep farms. Loath to give up the cheap labor of crofting communities that had for generations farmed the land, ...
