Product Description

'Lost Dundee' brings the second city of renaissance Scotland back to life showing, through previously undiscovered photographs and drawings, the life and the maritime quarter of this great port. It illustrates Dundee's transformation into a major Georgian town at the centre of the flax trade between St Petersburg and the USA, with the development of major public buildings a result of the influx of wealth into the region. This book goes on to examine Dundee's next transformation into the jute capital of the world. Its identity was transformed by the arrival of railways, which separated the town from the sea, and by the great mills and factories which engulfed it on both sides.The pressures upon mediaeval Dundee proved so great that in 1871 the process of replacing it with grandiose Victorian boulevards began. The final section illustrates the changes wrought in the twentieth century with the death of jute and its replacement as the city's major employer by tertiary education. This book draws particularly upon the rich visual history sources of Charles Lawson's drawings of old Dundee in the Central Library, the DC Thomson photographic collection, and the University of Dundee Archives. Essential to the understanding of this constantly re-generating city, this book contains 150 drawings, photographs and plans of Dundee.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61009 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

About the Author
Charles McKean is Professor of Scottish Architectural History at the University of Dundee and is one of Scotland's foremost authorities on Scotland's built environment. He is author of Edinburgh, Portrait of a City, Battle for the North: The Scottish Thirties and The Scottish Chateau, and is founder editor of the RIAS/Landmark Trust Illustrated Architectural Guides to Scotland.Patricia Whatley is University Archivist and Head of Archive, Records Management and Museum Services, and Director of the Centre for Archive and Information Studies at the University of Dundee, one of the strengths of which is its important textile collections. She is currently researching aspects of medical history of the Highlands.

Customer Reviews

City's identity a reflection of its built heritage
This well written and well illustrated book describes how the identity of the City of Dundee is reflected in its built heritage. More than this, the book examines how the City lost its direction as a result of wholesale demolition of its medieval heart and thoughtless un-coordinated redevelopment. The book reminds the reader of what has been lost in a lively and informative style. It, more optimistically, sees a new regeneration of Dundee as a university city and as a centre of scientific excellence. It is easily readable, not just as a reference book, but as a text containing a cogent message.