Glasgow

This anthology tells the story of the fabled, former Second City of the British Empire from its origins as a bucolic village on the rivers Kelvin and Clyde, through the tumult of the Industrial Revolution to the dawn of the third millennium. Arranged chronologically and introduced by journalist and Glasgowphile Alan Taylor, the book includes extracts from an astonishing array of contributors. Some, such as Daniel Defoe, Dr Johnson, Dorothy Wordsworth, Evelyn Waugh and Bill Bryson passed like ships in the night. Many others, among them Neil Munro, Alasdair Gray, Liz Lochhead and R.D. Laing, are bred-in-the-bone Glaswegians who know the city and its denizens as only natives can. The contributors come from every walk of life. As well as professional writers, there are artists and murderers, hacks and housewives, surgeons and scientists, footballers and comedians, immigrants and locals. Together they present a varied and vivid portrait of one of the world's great cities in all its grime and glory – a place which is at once infuriating, inspiring, raucous, humourful but never, ever dull.