FOREWORD

words will suffice. Whoever makes up his mind to write a short
history of European architecture, or art, or philosophy, or drama, or
agriculture, must decide in which part of Europe at any time those
things happened which seem to him to express most intensely the
vital will and vital feelings of Europe. It is for this reason that, e.g.
Germany is not mentioned for her 16th-century but for her i8th-
century buildings, that Spain's role in Western Mohammedan
architecture is left out, but her r6le in Western Christian architecture
considered, that buildings in the Netherlands are only touched
upon, and Scandinavian buildings not mentioned at all. The only
positive bias towards the work of one nation which has been per-
mitted (and needs no special apology) is towards British examples,
where they could be introduced without obscuring the issue,
instead of examples from abroad. The issue, to say it once more, is
Western architecture as an expression of Western civilisation, des-
cribed historically in its growth from the pth to the ipth century.

This book was published for thefirst time fiveyearsago by Penguin
Books. It has since had a second enlarged Penguin edition, and new
additions to text and illustrations have been introduced for the
present edition. A list of the alterations which were made for
the second as well as for this new edition will be found on p. 227.

Most of the drawings in the text of this edition were specially
drawn by Miss Margaret Tallet. The index is the work of Pamela
Reekie; the author wishes cordially to thank her for having given
up so much of her limited spare time to its compilation. He also
wishes to place on record his gratitude to Margaret Whinncy and
Anthony Blunt for reading the text of the whole book in typescript
and improving it in many ways.

LONDON, 1948 N. P.

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