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- Professor Tom Devine (Thomas Martin Devine) BA PhD D. Litt Hon D. Litt(Queen's Belfast)Hon D. Litt(Abertay Dundee) Hon D. Univ(Strathclyde) OBE FRSE Hon MRIA FRHistS FBA (born Motherwell, Scotland 1945) is a historian of Scotland. His main research interest is the history of the nation since c.1600 and its global connections and impact. He is widely acknowledged as Scotland's leading historian. Tom Devine was educated at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, from 1964 to 1968, and graduated with first class honours in Economic and Social History, followed by a PhD and D. Litt. He rose through the academic ranks from assistant lecturer to Reader, Professor, Head of Department, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He was Deputy Principal of the University from 1993 until 1997. In 1998 he accepted the Directorship of the world's first Centre of advanced research in Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen(the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies), which was formally inaugurated by President Mary McAleese of Ireland on St Andrew's Day 1999. Over the following five years, over £2.5 mill were raised for the Centre's research programmes from AHRC - which led to the establishment of the AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, funded competitively over 2 phases, - the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy, and a further £ 1.6 mill endowment gifted from the Glucksman family in the USA for a Research Chair in Irish and Scottish Studies, which Devine held until 2005. In April 2005, he was appointed to the Sir William Fraser Chair of Scottish History and Palaeography at the University of Edinburgh, widely acknowledged as the world’s premier Chair of Scottish History, which he took up in January 2006. In 2008 he became Director of the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies at Edinburgh, established by an external endownment of £1 million pounds by a leading Scottish fund manager and his family. He is the author or editor of some thirty books and numerous articles on topics such as emigration, famine, identity, Scottish transatlantic commercial links, urban history,the economic history of Scotland, Empire, the Scottish Highlands, the Irish in Scotland,sectarianism, stability and protest in the 18th century nation,Scottish elites, the Anglo-Scottish Union,rural social history and comparative Irish and Scottish relationships. The Scottish Nation (1999) became an international best seller, selling over 90,000 copies in the UK alone, and,for a brief period, even outselling the adventures of Harry Potter in Scotland. Devine has won all three major prizes for Scottish historical research(Hume Brown Senior,Saltire and Henry Duncan Prize and Lectureship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh), is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the British Academy: the only historian elected to all 3 national academies in the British Isles. Professor Devine holds the honorary degrees of D. Litt. from Queen's University Belfast and the University of Abertay Dundee and the hon. degree of D. Univ from Strathclyde. He was awarded the first ever John Aikenhead Medal for services to Scottish education by the Institute of Contemporary Scotland in 2006, and in the same year Bell College (now part of the University of the West of Scotland) conferred on him an Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his contributions to Scottish culture. In 2000 he was awarded the Royal Gold Medal, Scotland's supreme academic accolade, by Queen Elizabeth II, the only historian winner to date, and in 2005 was appointed OBE in the New Years Honours List for ' services to Scottish history'. One of his recent books, Scotland's Empire 1600-1815(2003) formed the basis of a six-part BBC2 series in 2005. Tom Devine was a member of the Research Awards Advisory Committee of the Leverhulme Trust from 2003 to 2009(adviser on all history fellowship applications) and holds visiting Professorships at the and the University of Guelph, Canada. He is currently Head of the School of History,Classics and Archaeology and Director of the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies in the University of Edinburgh. Devine has been a Trustee of the National Museums of Scotland and a Member of Council of the British Academy.
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