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, including 'Morality and Architecture Revisited' and 'Sir John Soane' (1996), and is a leading authority on Classicism and its successive renewals in architecture.