Book Description: Home to one of the world's great arts festivals, the capital of Scotland is a city of contrasting moods and atmospheres. Rising from the volcanic ridge that runs from the Castle Rock to Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh is a combination of living history and vibrant modernity. The historic fastness of the Castle presides over the classical sweep of the New Town, the eccentric charm of the Old, the affluent haughtiness of the West End, and the whimsical respectability of the Southside. Gothic, Georgian and Modernist rub shoulders in this eclectic city, while literature, the visual arts, music, and drama have all flourished through the ages.
From the glories of the Royal Mile to the gritty reality of Leith, this book reveals the many faces, past and present, of a great world city.
CITY OF HISTORY: Royal intrigue and murder; Holyrood and the Castle; the building of the New Town; philosophers and bigots; Scottish nationalism and the devolved parliament.
CITY OF LEGEND: Underground Edinburgh; Mary King's Close and other ghostly tales; Greyfriars Bobby and Burke and Hare.
CITY OF LITERATURE: Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson; the poets of the Scottish Renaissance; Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting; J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter.
Makes me homesick for Scotland I was born and went to school in Edinburgh, but have been an exile for 30 years, visiting as often as I can. My library on Edinburgh and its history is extensive, yet every chapter of this book gave me new and fascinating details about the city, past and present. The reading style of the book is lively and approachable, with interesting quotations, and I plan to acquire my own copy as soon as this one goes back to the library, so that I can add personal notes. The information is accurate, as assessed by my visit at Easter, and the illustrations good, if a little sparse. The only addition I would suggest is a map showing how Campbell divided the city into regions, marked with the appropriate chapter numbers.
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