In his highly acclaimed reference work David Watkin traces the history of western architecture from the earliest times in Mesopotamia and Egypt to the dramatic impact of CAD (computer-aided design) on architectural practice at the beginning of the 21st century. Adopting an approach that sees architectural history as a living continuity rather than a museum of neatly labelled styles, the author emphasizes the ongoing vitality of the Classical language of architecture, underlining the continuity between, say, the work of Ictinus in 5th-century BC Athens and that of McKim, Mead and White in 20th-century New York. Authoritative, comprehensive and highly illustrated, this fourth edition has been expanded to bring the story of western architecture right up to date.

David Watkin is 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.