When the late Spiro Kostof's A History of Architecture first appeared in1985, it was universally hailed as a masterpiece--one of the finest books onarchitecture ever written. The New York Times Book Review, in a front coverreview, called it "a magnificent guided tour through mankind's architecture,"and The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that "Kostof...has enthralled a generationof students.... Now he has done the same thing for the public at large, in anextraordinary book that is a new kind of architectural history."This magisterial work has now been revised and expanded by Greg Castillo,Kostof's colleague and literary executor. Insightful, engagingly written, andgraced with almost a thousand superb illustrations, the Second Edition of thisclassic volume offers a sweeping narrative that examines architecture as itreflects the social, economic, and technological systems of human history. Thescope of the book is astonishing. No mere survey of famous buildings, Kostof'sHistory examines a surprisingly wide variety of manmade structures: prehistorichuts and the TVA, the pyramids at Giza and the Rome railway station, theziggurat and the department store. Indeed, Kostof considered every buildingworthy of attention, every structure or shelter a potential source of insight,whether it be the prehistoric hunting camps at Terra Amata, or the caves atLascaux with their magnificent paintings, or a twenty-story hotel on the LasVegas strip. The Second Edition features a new concluding chapter, "Designingthe Fin de Siecle," based on Kostof's last lecture notes and prepared byCastillo, as well as an all-new 16-page color section. Many of the original linedrawings by Richard Tobias, as well as some 50 photographs, have also beenupdated or replaced, for improved clarity.Visually and intellectually stimulating, this book is at once a compellinghistory and an indispensable reference on all aspects of our built environment.It achieves for architecture what Janson's history accomplished for visualart.