On Glasgow and Edinburgh [electronic resource] / Robert Crawford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Crawford, Robert, 1959-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Glasgow (Scotland)--History.

Glasgow (Scotland).

Edinburgh (Scotland)--History.

Edinburgh (Scotland).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (345 pages ) illustrations (black and white), maps (black and white)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Edinburgh and Glasgow enjoy a famously scratchy relationship. Resembling other intercity rivalries throughout the world, from Madrid and Barcelona, to Moscow and St. Petersburg, to Beijing and Shanghai, Scotland's sparring metropolises just happen to be much smaller and closer together-like twin stars orbiting a common axis. Yet their size belies their world-historical importance as cultural and commercial capitals of the British Empire, and the mere forty miles between their city centers does not diminish their stubbornly individual nature. Robert Crawford dares to bring both cities to life between the covers of one book. His story of the fluctuating fortunes of each city is animated by the one-upping that has been entrenched since the eighteenth century, when Edinburgh lost parliamentary sovereignty and took on its proud wistfulness, while Glasgow came into its industrial promise and defiance. Using landmarks and individuals as gateways to their character and past, this tale of two cities mixes novelty and familiarity just as Scotland's capital and its largest city do. Crawford gives us Adam Smith and Walter Scott, the Scottish Enlightenment and the School of Art, but also tiny apartments, a poetry library, Spanish Civil War volunteers, and the nineteenth-century entrepreneur Maria Theresa Short. We see Glasgow's best-known street through the eyes of a Victorian child, and Edinburgh University as it appeared to Charles Darwin. Crawford's literary detailed account affirms what people from Glasgow or Edinburgh have long doubted-that it is possible to love both cities at the same time.

Contents:

Edinburgh.

The Royal Mile: from the castle to a song

The Royal Mile: from story to Parliament

Princes Street Gardens and the New Town

Hill, Hwa-Wu, and port

Medicine, museums, blood

Glasgow.

City hearts

Poverty and wealth

Sauchiehall Street, masterpieces, tenements, and books

Art, learning, arsenic, and architecture

Water

Coda: the Falkirk Wheel.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-674-06727-4

OCLC:

819330023