"The book's most informative and attractive feature is its illustrations, hundreds of drawings by Ching, a noted author and architectural illustrator." ("Choice," March 2007) A decade after the 100th anniversary of Banister Fletcher's venerable and indispensable

"A History of Architecture" (20th ed.) comes this fresh, one-volume historical encyclopedia of world architecture. Ching (architecture, Univ. of Washington;

"Architecture: Form, Space, and Order"), Mark M. Jarzombek (architecture & art, MIT), and Vikramaditya Prakash (architecture, Univ. of Washington) recast the story of the last 5000 years of building into a simple but brilliantly workable chronological schema of

"timecuts," flexible time spans growing shorter and denser as we reach the present. These timecuts succeed in facilitating cross-cultural analysis and minimizing Eurocentric bias. Best of all, they prevent yet another rehash of architectural history as a monotonous procession of endless and unconnected styles, periods, and places. Thus, the Forbidden City, Topkapi Palace, and Villa Medici are viewed as phenomena interdependent upon international trade routes and as outgrowths of an emergent

"global urbanism." Fifteenhundred elegant and superbly legible hand drawings by Ching, along with 1000 photographs and maps, illustrate a lucid and engaging text. Something of a hybrid, this is as much a solid reference resource as a revisionist textbook. Essential for most collections. --David Soltesz, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., Parma, OH ("Library Journal," October 15, 2006) .,."a unique and ambitious undertaking..." (The London Review of books, November 2006)