 Scotland's leading historian Sir Tom Devine is to deliver a keynote lecture at this year's Festival of Politics in the Scottish Parliament. New research which brings to light the full extent of Scotland's role in the slave trade. One of the arguments that I will be putting forward is to a very significant extent the Scottish Industrial Revolution, which made us the way we are today, was partially fuelled by markets and profits derived from Caribbean and North American slavery. The lecture is drawn from material compiled in a new book on the subject. Sir Tom believes Scotland is now ready to face this less appealing dimension of its past. I take the view that a mature democracy, and I think Scotland now is a mature democracy, is prepared to look at its past, what's-and-all. This is certainly one of the darker aspects which has never really come to the fore. The whole point of my discipline is to, if you like, to draw the scales from the eyes so that people see things in a different way. I love it at the end of a lecture, a public lecture, when an individual comes up or somebody in the audience says, I never thought of that before. And that's one of the great values of the historical discipline, especially in terms of new research. And this is serious new research, really hot out of the research oven, as I speak. Sir Tom Devine will be delivering his lecture, Scotland and Slavery, in the chamber of the Scottish Parliament on Friday, the 14th of August at half past four. His lecture will be followed by a panel discussion chaired by the Scottish Parliament's presiding officer, the right honourable Trisha Marwick MSP. A screening of the film, 12 Years a Slave, will also take place that evening. Tickets are available through the Festival of Politics website.