About

I'm John Alasdair Macdonald, a historian based in Inverness, Scotland. This site holds the interactive network graphs and visualisations for my PhD thesis completed at the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI). In addition, it also contains several stories introducing some of the most fascinating individuals to emerge from my studies over the years.

Though my studies are primarily focused around the late Jacobite period, at heart, I'm a social historian with a deep interest in the everyday lives, relationships and networks of eighteenth-century Highlanders. My research explores the social and economic circumstances of Jacobite Gaels in the decades following Culloden, and argues that their resilience, resourcefulness and agency has long been underestimated and overlooked by traditional historiography. Using a social network analysis approach, I've tried to bring some of these lives and connections back into view including, in particular, the significant and often unrecognised role of women during this period.

My thesis will be available to read from later this year. If you have questions or would like to get in touch, please email me at info@thehebrideanexplorer.com.

If this research has been useful or interesting to you, and you would like to support it, you are very welcome to do so at my Ko-fi page — entirely optional, and much appreciated.

Beyond the research, I lead private historian-guided tours of the Scottish Highlands and Islands through The Hebridean Explorer, where this research often finds its way into the stories I tell along the way.