 good big book
this is a good overview of architectural history. I just wish that I had gotten the paperback version instead of this heavy hardcover.
 Can't rate it b/c I never got the book
TERRIBLE. Never got the book, and NEVER received an email after I contacted him/her about the status of the book.
Bring back the missing examples!
This Second Edition of "A World History of Architecture" is an exact reprint of "Buildings Across Time", Third Edition by the same authors and publisher.
The difference? Price. $52 more! Just check the other book. For a while the First Edition was out of print so I was forced to use "Buildings Across Time" (I teach architecture at a Community College so price is very important to me). While I understand that the publishers have to make a profit, how is that that they can "afford" to sell this book for $41 while an exact copy of the "approved" higher education version is $92?
I welcome the addition of notable examples in the last chapter but I have a problem with the removal of many other buildings. Just to name a few that were present in the First Edition and are missing from the Second: Biskupin, Ishtar Gate, Temple of Ramesses II, Great Stupa at Borobodur, Caernarvon Castle etc. I am not sure what this cleansing is all about, both editions are 592 pages. Granted something had to give since there are new examples throughout.
I am only writing this in a hope that the Third Edition would include the missing examples from First Edition. If number of pages is fixed, just make some of the photographs smaller. Come on McGraw-Hill, you can do it!
 great
I got this book for my Architecture class this fall. It was cheaper online than at any of the university bookstores and it shipped VERY quickly. It was also sent in a secure package, and arrived intact, which is problem I ran into with some other books I ordered this summer, not from this seller however.
A critically essential addition to academic and community library Architectural Studies collections
The making of buildings from natural materials is older than the recorded history of the human race. Even in paleolithic and neolithic eras there were remarkable, complex, and enduring structures as evidenced by archaeological discoveries. The collaborative work of the team of Michael Fazio (Professor Emeritus of Architecture, Mississippi State University), Marian Moffett and Lawrence Wodehouse (both of whom have extensive careers teaching architecture at the university level), and now in a newly updated and expanded second edition, "A World History Of Architecture" begins with the advent of the city state architecture beginning with the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, and Egyptians, then proceeds with an architectural survey of the ancient Greece, India, Southeast Asia, China, Japan, and the Romans. There are detailed chapters covering the distinctive architecture of the Early Christians and Byzantines, Islam, medieval and romanesque Europe. Also presented are informative chapters on Gothic architecture, indigenous American and African architecture, as well as the buildings and structures of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. The final four (and extensive) chapters deal with 18th, 19th, and 20th century architectural advances, as well as 'Modernisms in the Mid- and Late Twenty-First Century and Beyond'. Superbly illustrated throughout, the text is consistently informed and informative, making "A World History Of Architecture" a critically essential addition to academic and community library Architectural Studies collections -- and is especially recommended for non-specialist general readers with an interest in architectural history.
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