Offering a refreshing change from standard histories, which so often tell a nation's story in terms of big events and personalities, Set on a Hill is an engrossing and entertaining book which looks at the broad sweep of Scotland's history from the perspective of just one small Scottish town - Auchterarder. The story begins in the first century AD, when the Strathearn area lay near the northern frontier of the Roman empire, and continues through the age of Picts, Scots and Britons and Vikings to the coming of Christianity and the medieval Church. Robin Bell then traces Auchterarder's history through the Renaissance, Enlightenment, the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions, the improvements of the Victorian era, the two world wars and ends in 2005, when the world-famous Gleneagles hotel hosted the G8 summit. Set on a Hill highlights an area that has been of surprising strategic historical importance for thousands of years, and shows how international events affect a local community and how it often turns round and effects them right back.