On Glasgow and Edinburgh

Scotland beckons.We’ve taken vacations to the United Kingdom for the last four years, and focused on London and southern England. But given the fact that my first novel has scenes set in Edinburgh, which I’ve never visited except via the internet, Scotland has started exerting a stronger pull. After reading Robert Crawford’s “On Glasgow and Edinburgh,” the pull has become irresistible.This is not traditional travel writing. This is more like a well-researched, filled-with-fascinating-facts love letter to two cities, which, Crawford points out in a long introduction, maintain a usually friendly rivalry for pre-eminence in Scotland.What Crawford does for both cities is to take the areas where most visitors would see – the historical areas, the museums, the shopping districts, the historical neighborhoods – and then provide a detailed look at where they came from, who lived there, what life was like, and interesting facts (like murders and trials). The result is a rich tapestry of understanding, a look into life and people across different historical eras, and how these two cities developed as they did.This is the kind of book you read before you visit. Perhaps you even bring it with you to consult during your visit.You walk with Crawford on streets and neighborhoods, like the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and Buchanan Street in Glasgow, and you find history, commerce, art, literature, architecture, science, medicine, and people. You discover who built the universities, where the great art collections and libraries came from, and how Edinburgh became a royal capital and Glasgow a manufacturing one (and why both revere the poet Robert Burns).And you discover Edinburgh’s poetry library, and Glasgow’s Mitchell Library. You learn who it was who pioneered what today we called an English literature course (Adam Smith, he who wrote “The Wealth of Nations” and the “father” of capitalism). You meet Mary Queen of Scots, Lord Kelvin, Dr. Joseph Lister (pioneer of antiseptic surgery), the murderers Burke and Hare who supplied cadavers to Edinburgh’s medical school, the architects, artists, sculptors, tobacco merchants, and shipbuilders. Best of all, Crawford does this in a well-written narrative; this is no laundry list of facts and figures but a story, a great story of two cities which have had a tremendous influence worldwide.“On Glasgow and Edinburgh” is an informative, entertaining delight.Yes, Scotland beckons.

I bought ON GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH as background for a forthcoming brief trip to Edinburgh, where I have never been. It proved to be more than I desired, and, I suspect, it is more detailed than all but the most ardent Edinburghers or Glaswegians would probably want to read. Plus, the writing, while impeccably smooth, proved to be soporific for me.Robert Crawford begins the book with a forty-page "Prelude", in which he posits that Edinburgh and Glasgow share a rivalry that puts them in the same bracket as Los Angeles and San Francisco, Moscow and St. Petersburg, and Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Only Glasgow and Edinburgh are somewhat smaller (600,000 and 485,000 people respectively). The rest of that Prelude describes the rivalry, both now and through history, in such detail that it almost suffocated my desire to read further. Crawford devotes the next 134 pages of text to Edinburgh, and the last 138 pages of text to Glasgow (reversing the order of presentation from the listing of the cities in the title of the book). Crawford's approach to his account of each city is to focus on about twenty specific sites in the historic core of each city, i.e., "city-centre heritage sites that present-day tourists may readily visit." This makes the book more useful to tourists, but at the same time better facilitates discussion of historical, literary, and commercial aspects of the cities than a traditional travel guide would. For each city there is a very good map locating the sites discussed, and integrated into the text there are about fifty-five black-and-white photographs, most of which are contemporary.The book is informative, and I am willing to believe that it is quite reliable. My problems with it, as already indicated, are with the degree of detail and the quality of the writing. With regard to the latter, each sentence is well-written, but as a whole the text is smooth and superficial, with no personality, pizzazz, or passion. Each time I sat down to read the book, I ended up dozing off after twenty or so pages (relatively unusual for me). The somnolence was such that I did not read the section on Glasgow, inasmuch as I will not have time to go there on my upcoming trip.

First, my credentials. I've actually visited for a while, both Edinburgh and Glasgow.This is a highly useful book who want to dig far deeper, beyond any tourism oriented overview, yet still want to have a good time.Every paragraph is absolutely packed with references to topics to follow up on, some current, some reaching back a millennia.Case in point among thousands, near the end of chapter One, "The Royal Mile: From the Castle to a Song", Crawford references a short film made in 1951, "The Singing Street", showing children chanting and skipping rope.My followup brought me to a clip on YouTube and I could see these children skipping rope out on the street, 1951.Many references to deeds and works by Burns and Stevenson and many other local boys.

If you've ever lived in or visited these two cities, this book will fascinate. It captures the character of each place and helps the reader understand how they evolved along their very different paths. Full of fascinating historical facts, it could be used as a guide to exploring the history of two great cities.

My wife and I have made six 3-week trips to Scotland in the past 20 years. We both enjoyed this book and wish it had been published sooner. It is very complete and very descriptive. We have made our last visit, so the book has triggered memory bites we didn't realize we had retained.

I liked this book a lot, although I doubt that I would have been attracted to it had I not lived in Glasgow for almost a year.

Interesting, entertaining and equally balanced. Some old stories but lots I didn't know about. Ready for a trip down nostalgia lane.

Just getting into reading, but looks to be great book! Recommended by Wall St Journal and my brother in law.

Having lived in Edinburgh for a period and spent many happy hours in both Edinburgh and Glasgow since I bought this book to fill in some background. I can highly recommend it - indeed I have done many times. It's beautifully written - scholarly but also very amusing, particularly on the history of the rivalry between the two cities. Reading it made me want to go and explore the areas described in the book and look for places I hadn't ever noticed properly before. Illuminating on the history of streets and buildings you normally just take for granted.

Appreciated

Not enough about Paisley, but - apart from that carping criticism - en excellent study. I must go and have a closer look at both.