Urban biographies are growing in numbers upon the shelves. A clutch of mainly English ones were reviewed recently in these pages by David Reeder with a sense of cautious enthusiasm and warnings about the dangers of fragmentation in these often topic-oriented multi-authored volumes. Recent examples include Donald Miller's 1996 study of Chicago, an example of unashamedly scholarly boosterism. The massive Burrows and Wallace study of New York followed in 1999 and presented a detailed episodic account of the city. In 1,383 pages they have still only got to 1898. This book displayed a love of city with overwhelming knowledge, but presented a very readable story for those with stamina. Scotland already has the two Glasgow volumes, also included in Reeder's review. To this have now been added multi-authored studies of Aberdeen and Dundee and two more accounts of Glasgow