There is only one argument for Scottish independence: the cultural argument. It was there long before North Sea oil was discovered, and it will be here long after the oil has run out... We believe, as teachers, artists, a painter and a poet, both of us travellers in other lands, both of us residents in Scotland, that Scotland should be an independent nation. ALEXANDER MOFFAT AND ALAN RIACH

Arts of Independence takes a hard look at the most neglected aspect of the argument for Scotland's distinctive national identity: the arts. The proposition is that music, painting, architecture, and, pre-eminently, literature are the fuel and fire of political change.

Following the success of Arts of Resistance, this new work by the same authors takes the argument over Scottish independence out of the hands of politicians and economists and beyond the petty squabbles of party politics.