A History of Western Architecture

　　In this highly acclaimed reference work David Watkin traces the history of western architecture from the earliest times in Mesopotamia and Egypt to the eclectic styles of the twenty-first century. The author emphasizes the ongoing vitality of the Classical language of architecture, underlining the continuity between, say, the work of Ictinus in fifth-century BC Athens and that of McKim, Mead and White in twentieth-century New York. Authoritative, comprehensive and highly illustrated, this fifth edition has been expanded to bring the story of western architecture right up to date and includes a separate final chapter on twenty-first century developments, including computers and architecture, and sustainability and the environment.

　　David Watkin is Emeritus Professor of the History of Architecture at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Peterhouse. He has written many books, among them: Morality and Architecture Revisited and Sir John Soane (1996), and is a leading authority on Classicism and its successive renewals in architecture.