On Glasgow and Edinburgh is a thoroughly enjoyable book, all the more so for provoking arguments (the Glaswegian’s favorite hobby). Readers familiar with the two cities will enjoy the recitation of familiar history and the frequent occurrence of unfamiliar fact and anecdote. Those who have not (yet) gazed from Castle Street in the New Town to Castle Rock, the high glory of the Old, will read about it and make plans to visit. After Edinburgh, they should fly around the world and arrive at Glasgow and discover Scotland all over again.

The book offers a portrait, not a narrative history, and is intended for visitors as well as for natives and other Scots, many of whom will find, as I did, that they don’t know either city as well as they supposed… On Glasgow and Edinburgh is an enjoyable book, its learning leavened by the author’s wit and sense of the absurd.

Crawford…has in On Glasgow and Edinburgh yoked together the two warring siblings of urban Scotland, seeking to calm their feud by writing separately, perceptively and in great detail about each… Crawford’s is a rich piece of work—a kind of literary guidebook, which demands that you go to one or both of these cities and see for yourself.

Affectionate, sharply observed and sharply written… On Glasgow and Edinburgh…is a highbrow guidebook, as useful to carry on a visit as it is pleasurable to read far away.

This new book—written ‘for both with love’—is about the two cities the poet appears to care about most… Alas, he is fair. His personification of these cities is so thorough, and so in keeping with his overall aesthetic as a poet who tenders contradiction, that you cannot—despite my evil attempts—use the book as a primer on how to stoke up the ancient and holy rivalries… Edinburgh/Glasgow is a culture clash between two cities forty miles apart, and Crawford’s book seeks to do it honor. He calls it ‘a treasured rivalry,’ and he isn’t wrong: each city would be slightly less without the other’s countervailing charm… You could take a walk in each city with the book in your hand and see where ideas have shaped the stone. It’s a tale of two cities as represented by their storytellers, their makars, their minstrels and their celebrants.

Excellent.

Robert Crawford is that rarest breed of Scotsman: one who professes to love Edinburgh and Glasgow equally… He has produced a walking guide to Scotland’s greatest cities that will delight any literary-minded tourist. Many natives will learn much from this agreeable book too.

A fascinating book filled with pithy observations and unexpected anecdotes. Crawford comes across like an erudite, beady-eyed flâneur, alive to the relationship between topography and history, combining spirited insight with irreverent characterizations… Melding personal reminiscence with inspired historical research he has a keen eye for the ironies and contrasts of city life. As a result there is enough surprising information here to delight even those who know the territory well… Crawford assembles a compelling case for the idea that the two cities get more from their colorful rivalry than they would from a bland collaboration… This richly illustrated, intelligent and compelling work of history and reflection offers heartfelt tribute to both.

Crawford’s aim is not to create a fast-paced travel guide to each city. Instead, he takes the reader in hand, moves to the center of town, selects 24 sites of interest in each city, and sets off on a walking tour. By journey’s end, the reader is utterly—and equally—beguiled by Edinburgh and Glasgow… Crawford is a Scottish Walt Whitman, singing of the cities he loves.

As with all good ideas, one wonders why no-one has ever written a book about Glasgow and Edinburgh before… Crawford attempts, with admirable evenhandedness, to explain their parallel stories… It is of course remarkable that two cities just 50 or so miles apart are so different in character and sensibility. Travel from one to the other and you could be in another country… Far from seeing the Glasgow–Edinburgh rivalry as debilitating, Crawford regards it positively.

Crawford impartially analyses the character, past and present of Scotland’s two combatants, not in a dry academic treatise, but a lively and interesting urban exploration which I found captivating… Architecture, streets, parks, gardens, citizens of note, industry, government, history, the arts, vice; all these, and more, are covered here in fascinating, minutely researched detail… Eminently readable, enlightening and entertaining, On Glasgow and Edinburgh is truly a tale of two modern cities. This might be the only book you’ll ever need to read if you want to learn what makes these two places tick; elements in common and aspects which set them apart.

This is an unfailingly intelligent and sympathetic book.

From the eminent poet and professor of literature comes a thoughtful and provocative account of the rivalry that has dogged these two cities. It’s [Crawford’s] belief that this ongoing duel has played a significant part in shaping Scotland, but also that it ought now to be resolved.

This is a fascinating book, if in some ways a peculiar one, part coffee table, part high table, elegant and erudite but wearing its learning lightly… Beautifully illustrated—the images of the Falkirk Wheel are stunning—and written in an effortlessly engaging style, On Glasgow and Edinburgh is a bold and breezy book.

A delightfully engaging mix of history, architectural reference, and literary allusion. A most enjoyable read, which will have wide appeal well beyond aficionados of these two great cities.

A wonderful book—richly informative, critically astute, and lucidly and vividly written.

This book is a beautiful idea lovingly accomplished. It is high time that the old and ugly rivalry between Glasgow and Edinburgh ended, and this book shows us how to do it. Like an inspirational couples counselor, Robert Crawford suggests that bigamy is the answer: we should learn to love both of these great cities with equal passion. He does, and so do I. You should try it, too.

People familiar with either place will find much to divert them in these pages, and those who have never visited Scotland’s great cities will feel that they have been there after reading Crawford’s book.