In his highly acclaimed reference work David Watkin traces the history of western architecture from the earliest times to the 21st century. Adopting an approach that sees architectural history as a continuous narrative, the author emphasizes the ongoing vitality of the Classical language of architecture, underlining the continuity between, for example, the work of Ictinus in 5th-century BC Athens and that of McKim, Mead and White in 20th-century New York. "The best narrative survey of Western Architecture" - Sir John Summerson