The Transformation of Edinburgh: Land, Property and Trust in the Nineteenth Century

by Richard Rodger

Overview

This clear, lucid and richly illustrated study, based on a formidable amount of new archival research, explores the physical transformation of Edinburgh in the nineteenth century. Richard Rodger's powerful book shows how landowners, builders and investors pursued their own agendas and in doing so reshaped the Victorian towns and cities that the twentieth century inherited. Historians—whether political, urban, economic, social or legal—will find challenging new insights here, which have a resonance far beyond the confines of one city.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521780247
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/25/2001
Pages:	562
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 1.38(d)

About the Author

Richard Rodger is Professor of Urban History at Leicester University and Director of the Centre for Urban History. He teaches courses in economic and social history and is interested in the application of computing to historical analysis. He has written or edited ten books on the economic, social and business history of cities, including Scottish Housing in the Twentieth Century (1989), European Urban History (1993) and Housing in Urban Britain 1780–1914 (1995). Since 1987 Richard Rodger has been Editor of Urban History (published by Cambridge University Press).

Table of Contents

Part I. Urban Frameworks: 1. Introduction; 2. Institutional power and landownership: the nineteenth-century inheritance; 3. Victorian feudalism; 4. Building capital: Trusts, loans and the kirk; 5. The building industry and instability; Part II. Building Enterprise and Housing Management: 6. The search for stability; 7. Industrial suburb: developing Dalry; 8. The genesis of a property owning democracy?; 9. Landlord and tenant; 10. Post-script: 'Firmiter et Durabile': the construction of legitimacy; Part III. Complementary Visions of Society: 11. Co-operation and mutuality: 'the colonies' and the Edinburgh Co-operative Building Company; 12. Civic consciousness, social consciences and the built environment; 13. Adornment, ego and image: the decoration of the tenement; 14. Conclusion: Re-inventing the city.

Editorial Reviews

"[T]he achievement of Rodger's book cannot be overstated. The Transformation of Edinburgh will long serve as the benchmark for - and cornerstone of - future studies of the economic and social history of urban Scotland."
British Politics Group Newsletter

"The Transformation of Edinburgh is by any standards a remarkable piece of scholarship … a unique undertaking … Richard Rodger has made a major contribution to our understanding of a city that should be better known …"
H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online

"[It is] a study that is the fruit of exhaustive archival research … [T]here are many practical lessons that nineteenth-century Edinburgh can teach us about the relationships that underlie physical, economic, and social transformation."
Civil Engineering

"… this is a path-breaking book that demands to be read, and reread, by all those with a serious interest in the material life and culture of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British, European, and North American city."
The American Historical Review

"… detailed … clearly the result of extensive primary research … attractively written, in places witty … an innovative and holistic approach to urban development and its social and cultural implications. The volume is impressively illustrated and is littered with helpful tables, charts, and maps … highly readable …"
Business History Review

From the Publisher