Glasgow's going round and round: some recent Scottish urban history

Abstract

If a rural historian who has few credentials to undertake the current review may begin this essay with a point from his own field of research: there is a view of Scottish rural history which argues that far too much attention has been paid to the Highlands. A similar view could be advanced about concentration on Glasgow in Scottish urban history; in addition to the volumes under consideration have been numerous other recent titles. As Professor Morris has noted in a recent review article in this journal, however, other Scottish cities, especially Aberdeen and Dundee, have recently been subjected to variants of the ‘urban biography’ approach. Aberdeen, in particular, has come under intense scrutiny with a two-volume history sponsored by the local authority and taking advantage of the rich resources of the city archives. Edinburgh, by contrast, and notwithstanding the recent culmination of Professor Rodger's extensive researches, remains the poor relation of Scottish urban history: aside from the classic account of the creation of the New Town by A.J. Youngson and the late R.Q. Gray's account of nineteenth-century social history, the existing historiography of Scotland's capital city remains interred in the pages of unpublished theses and scholarly journals.