Urban design in Western Europe : regime and architecture, 900-1900 /

The distinguished capstone to the career of an important historian who died in 1987, this book deserves the careful attention of all who are interested in architecture and cities. Its point--because politics builds cities, the best cities are those that serve a good politics well--provides a welcome counterthrust to the muddled orthodoxy of social and art histories of cities found, for example, in Mark Girouard, Cities & People (CH, Jan '86). Stressing German and central European examples and running across the millenium ending in 1900, it complements Braunfels's Monasteries of Western Europe (1972), but various asides and the front and end materials point out the moral for today. The translation, although marred by minor errors (some of them in the German third edition, 1979), is adequate and readable. The 190 figures of the original volume have been reshot and therefore made somewhat muddy. The notes make no claim to be comprehensive but do include references to some obscure but important German publications. For general readers and university collections. -C. W. Westfall, University of Virginia

There are many one-volume histories of urban planning, from Paul Zucker's Town and Square (1959) to, most recently, Jonathan Barnett's The Elusive City ( LJ 10/15/86). The volume at hand covers the subject from 900 to 1900, concentrating on central Europe. Organized typologically, it moves from cathedral cities, port cities, imperial cities, ideal cities, court cities, and capital cities to a final chapter on the eternal city, Rome. Braunfels, author of the widely acclaimed Monasteries of Western Europe (1973), takes a political tack, examining how physical forms have taken shape from political forces and pleading the case for wise urban design. Peter Kaufman, Suffolk Community Coll., Selden, N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.