T. M. Devine has written four books for Penguin: The Scottish Nation, Scotland's Empire, To the Ends of the Earthand Independence or Union. He is Sir William Fraser Professor Emeritus of Scottish History and Palaeography at the University of Edinburgh. In 2001 he was awarded the Royal Gold Medal, Scotland's supreme academic accolade, and has won all three major prizes for Scottish historical research. He was knighted in 2014 for services to the study of Scottish history. In 2018 he received the UK Parliament's All Party History and Archives Group Lifetime Achievement Award for Historical Studies.