The Making of Classical Edinburgh 1750–1840

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Alexander John Brown Youngson

Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2002, 1988; originally published 1966, English

Nonfiction, Architecture; Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History; Nonfiction, Urban Design

ISBN: 9780748617685

From the Publisher. Acclaimed as a masterly exposition of the making of the much quoted, photographed, studied and loved townscapes of Georgian Edinburgh, A. J. Youngson's classic book recreates and brings to life one of the most comprehensive, detailed and remarkable urban expansion programs ever undertaken. He describes the vigor of the planning debates, the fund-raising schemes, the administrative and legislative infrastructure of planning, the construction of public buildings as poles of attraction for speculative building, and all the hopes, quarrels, victories, and civic bankruptcy that went into this great experiment. Superbly illustrated with over 160 photographs and line drawings, this is an invaluable work of history and a fascinating account of the shaping of one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

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Alan Balfour

On Alan Balfour’s Book List

A beautiful book whose design is matched by brilliant scholarship. Reading it makes one in awe of a society in which, for a short period, wealth was pooled to create a unified reality.

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