Aberdeen-born historian, sociologist, political activist and trade unionist, Neil Davidson has died at the age of 62.
Mr Davidson was a prolific writer on Scottish history and economy and author of a large number of influential books and articles.
How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions? explored the reasons for the emergence of capitalism and Discovering the Scottish Revolution, 1692-1746, won him the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher prize.
Mr Davidson was born in Aberdeen in 1957 in Aberdeen to Dougie, a radiographer, and Margaret, a secretary.
An active socialist and avid reader and writer from a young age, Mr Davidson went on to work with the North East of Scotland Regional Hospital Board, the Scottish Office and then the Scottish Parliament.
In the latter, he rose through the ranks to become policy adviser to then first minister Alex Salmond.
While he played the part of civil servant during working hours, he was also an active socialist, having joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in 1978.
He was founder of the Edinburgh Campaign Against War in Europe, which protested about Nato actions during the Balkans conflict, and in 2013, having left the SWP, helped to create the breakaway rs21 political group.
He went on to become senior research fellow at Strathclyde University and later, a lecturer in sociology at Glasgow University, a position he held until his death on May 3.
Mr Davidson wrote a number of books, anthologies, and hundreds of articles on an extraordinary range subjects – more than most academics would produce in a normal career.
He was an accomplished Marxist scholar, with a global reputation for insightful and well researched work on a range of topics that made him be noticed on a global level.
Latterly he was a leading member of the RISE socialist alliance in Scotland as well as a leading and founding member of the Radical Independence Campaign.
Mr Davidson is survived by partner Cathy, mother Margaret and sister Shona.
