In August 1947, an émigré Austrian opera impresario launched the Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama to heal the scars of the Second World War through a celebration of the arts. At the same time, a socialist theatre group from Glasgow and other amateur companies protested their exclusion from the festival by performing anyway, inventing the concept of 'fringe' theatre. Now the annual celebration known collectively as the Edinburgh Festival is the largest arts festival in the world, incorporating events dedicated to theatre, film, art, literature, comedy, dance, jazz and even military pageantry. It has launched careers – from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Beyond the Fringe to Phoebe Waller-Bridge with Fleabag – mirrored the political and social mood of its times, shaped the city of Edinburgh around it and welcomed a huge all-star cast, including Orson Welles, Grace Kelly, Yehudi Menuhin and Mark E Smith's The Fall and many many more. This is its story.

More than a tenth of the land mass of the UK comprises 'urban fringe': the countryside around towns that has been called 'planning's last frontier'. One of the key challenges facing spatial planners is the land-use management of this area, regarded by many as fit only for locating sewage works, essential service functions and other un-neighbourly uses. However, to others it is a dynamic area where a range of urban and rural uses collide. Planning on the Edge fills an important gap in the literature, examining in detail the challenges that planning faces in this no-man’s land. It presents both problems and solutions, and builds a vision for the urban fringe that is concerned with maximising its potential and with bridging the physical and cultural rift between town and country. Its findings are presented in three sections: the urban fringe and the principles underpinning its management sectoral challenges faced at the urban fringe (including commerce, energy, recreation, farming, and housing) managing the urban fringe more effectively in the future. Students, professionals and researchers alike will benefit from the book's structured approach, while the global and transferable nature of the principles and ideas underpinning the study will appeal to an international audience.

Coastal Plants provides a definitive guide to the 100 most common plants of the Perth coastal region and includes the key species used in coastal restoration. Each species is presented with its Latin name, common name and family, together with its distribution, key diagnostic features, natural history, pollination, uses in restoration and propagation. The description for each species is accompanied by a distribution map and diagnostic photographs of the whole plant, flowers, seeds and fruits. Coastal Plants also contains introductory chapters on the biology and ecology of the coastal plants, their biogeography, and practical approaches to the restoration of coastal dune vegetation.