In October 2007, writers Mike Small and Kevin Williamson launched Bella Caledonia at the Radical Book Fair in Edinburgh.
Since then, Bella has consistently explored ideas of self-determination and offered Scotland's most robust political commentary.
In the run up to Scottish independence referendum, international interest grew and Bella Caledonia had more than 500,000 unique users a month, with a peak of one million in August - in 2015, the site was named as one of the top 10 political blogs in the UK by Cision.
This anthology, curated by Mike Small, is a flavour of Bella's output over these 14 years the editor's pick. Bella is aligned to no political party and sees herself as the bastard child of parent publications too good for this world; from Calgacus to Red Herring, from Harpies & Quines to the Black Dwarf.
Under Mike's editorship, Bella has developed a 'Fifth Estate' as a way of disrupting the passive relationship of old media, creating something more active and appropriate for the 21st century - it's about concentration of ownership, and bringing together radical coverage with cultural analysis. Hence the plethora of wide-ranging voices in this anthology, each representing outlier viewpoints in contemporary society - novelists, poets, bloggers and journalists publishing in non-mainstream media outlets, and the social media.
"Bella Caledonia has been a flagship for progressive thought in Scotland, providing a platform for informed and creative writing, advocating a progressive and independent nation fit for the future."
Stuart Cosgrove
"Bella has been to be a constant thorn in the side of the powerful voices who would prefer that conventional wisdom went unchallenged, that awkward questions went unasked, and bold solutions went unheard."
Peter Geoehgan
2007-2021, An Introduction
Mike Small
13
Balmoral Buyout
AndyWightman
29
Vote Britain
Alan Bissett
37
Dinner with NoVoters or What I wanted to say
before the Pudding hit the fan
Peter Arnott
57
We need to talk about leadership
Laura Eaton-Lewis
63
Its Time:The Independence of Gough
Whitlam
Meaghan Delahunt
73
Getting out of the Kitchen
Katie Galloghly-Swan
79
Not Nationality but Language
Scott Hames
83
Coulport, Devo Max and Imperial Britain
Brian Quail
41
The Sea Inside
Kathleen Jamie
45
The Shetland Card
George Rosie
51
8
Scottish Independence and PostCapitalism
Pat Kane
111 81
The Sinking of theWhale
Maxwell Macleod
111
Donald Trump and the Second Sight
Alastair McIntosh
11121
TheTheatre of Humiliation
George Gunn
147
Means and Ends
Caitlin Logan
153
Fear, Loathing and Gentrifying Paradise
Neil Cooper
11157
From Paris to Nantes, StateViolence 1968-2018
Chloé Farand
11185
Learning Gaelic, Learning Scotland:
Normalising Langauge
Abi Lightbody
11193
Racism,The New Right and Media Failure
Amna Saleem
11197
A Toxic Culture
AL Kennedy
111127
Automation
IrvineWelsh
11133
In Defence of Nostalgia
Paul Tritschler
143
The trouble with the council tax is the sound
your buzzer makes
Alistair Davidson
18988189
9
The Rehabilitation of Gordon Brown
Jamie Maxwell
11201
Cranstackie
Dougie Strang
11205
The Art of Living Together
Mairi McFayden
11211
Patchy and Negligible
Claire Squires
11217
The Capital of Amnesia
Christopher Silver
11239
Take me to Abaton
Mike Small
11243
When I Needed a Neighbour
Alison Phipps
11249
Magical Thinking
Rory Scothorne
255
Slavery DerivedWealth in Scotland Today
Iain MacKinnon
263
Patriarchy,Theocracy and Tragedy:The Dark
Shadow of Irelands Mother and Baby Homes
Cait ONeill McCullagh
269
55Years Ago in Madrid
Stuart Christie
11221
The Jobby, Brazil, and Nuveen
George Kerevan
11223
Notes From Underground #7: I Only Have One
Prediction forYou
Dougald Hine
11227
10
Prince Philip was the Godfather of Anglo-
British Nationalism
Adam Ramsay
The rise, fall and rise of party and movement
and the Changing Idea of Scotland
11285
11289
Passing the Mundair Test
Raman Mundair
11277
Gerry Hassan
Mike Small is a writer, journalist, author and publisher. He has written for the Guardian, Sunday Herald, Sunday National, Open Democracy, Variant, Lobster and Z Magazine. He is currently working on a biography of Patrick Geddes and a history of Scottish Anarchism. He has edited Bella Caledonia since 2007.
