Published after the death of Burns and the publication of Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ballads such as those Motherwell collected were one focus of a loose-knit movement that might be designated, cultural nationalism. This interest in preserving relics that suggested a distinctly Scottish culture and nation was one response to the union of the Scottish and English Parliaments in 1707. Mary Ellen Brown's study provides a model for historical ethnography, focusing on an individual and illustrating the multiple ways he was richly embedded in his time and place.