Welcome to my website – information about current and past research.

I work on the prehistory of what is now called Britain, the archaeology and history of modern defence, and the historiography of both periods. I am particularly interested in the way that the near and distant past are manipulated to promote modern political ends.

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Latest articles

22/10/26

An Update

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15/12/21

Mythologies 3: The 51st Highland Division at St Valery (or indeed Dunkirk!)

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12/01/21

Mythologies 2: ‘Churchill sent English troops and tanks into George Square, Glasgow, in 1919, to crush a strike / stop a revolution’

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17/11/20

Tanks on the Streets? Glasgow and the Tank, 1918-1919

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About Gordon Barclay

Gordon Barclay started out in archaeology – the prehistory of Scotland – excavating many archaeological sites throughout eastern Scotland, and also in Norway. Over twenty years ago he began to develop expertise in the archaeology of modern defence and its accompanying military history.

Nowadays, he undertakes documentary and field research for his own projects and for local and national government organisations, specialising in the extraction of meaning from large bodies of complex evidence.

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Publications

The Fortification of the Firth of Forth 1880-1977. ‘The most powerful naval fortress in the British Empire’

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Ten years in the life of a factoid: fake history in the Scottish independence debate

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SCOTTISH AFFAIRS PREPRINT: ‘Churchill abandoned the fighting Scots’: the mythology and reality of the surrender of the 51st Highland Division at St Valery-en-Caux, 12 June 1940.

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The ‘omphalos of Britain’: iconic sites and landscapes, methodological nationalism and conceptual conservatism in the writing of ‘British’ prehistory. A reply to Madgwick and collaborators 2021

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