'Takes on Banister Fletcher on his own ground and beats him hollow with a combination of lucid, well informed text and pictures ...the images make browsing a pleasure ...if I were teaching a survey course of architectural history, I would choose this as the course book' - ''Art Quarterly''. Updated and improved for the new edition, this is a core student text with course adoptions around the world. This book comprises both a detailed survey of Western architecture, including Pre-Columbian America, and an introduction to architecture from the Middle East, India, Russia, China, and Japan. This text encourages readers to examine the pragmatic, innovative, and aesthetic attributes of buildings. Artistic, economic, environmental, political, social and technological contexts are discussed.