Glasgow
A History of the City
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published:10th Aug '17
Currently unavailable, our supplier has not provided us a restock date
A one volume history of the great city of Glasgow from the Celts to Celtic by the controversial Scottish historian and biographer of Edinburgh.
Beloved, reviled – and not only by Glaswegians – Glasgow isn't just the Industrial Revolution nor the Victorian slums. Founded in the sixth century, its forebears pushed back the Romans. The roof of its cathedral, founded in the twelfth century, survived the Reformation. Its fifteenth-century university welcomed Adam Smith and the Enlightenment. It prospered from sugar, tobacco, cotton and slavery in the eighteenth century, and saw the rise of the Red Clydesiders in the twentieth. Glasgow's not just a city, it's an urban civilization in itself, unique and fruitful. Its denizens have seen the city rise and fall, they have survived bombs and demolitions, and somehow kept their humour intact. Now these people and this city play a pivotal role in Scotland's future, and in the future of the UK. It's time for a book that tells the story in all its complexity.
His writing is always engaging, occasionally brilliant... there is an energy, a sense of excitement of what the next paragraph might bring, in every chapter... his essay on literature is simply brilliant' * The Herald *
Fry is excellent on, for example, the failure of the Scottish car industry, and the impacts that would have on subsidiary but essential manufacturing – from steel to textiles... It is, in some ways, more a work of polemic, with Glasgow the Patient Zero he is trying to understand: that left, right, vulgar, cultured, blootered, teetotal city' * Scotland on Sunday *
For those who like their history argumentative and strongly flavoured then [Fry’s] book will provide an appetising meal, even a banquet... Over 10 chapters he explores the likes of trade, industry, religion, class and poverty with a compelling mix of wit and erudition' * The Sunday Times *
A really interesting book and well worth reading * Westender *
Fry is at home debunking myths and opening wounds... Thought-provoking' * History Scotland *
ISBN: 9781784975821
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
448 pages