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Saturday, August 9, 2008

Book Reviews

One of my primary reasons for starting this blog was to house my book reviews. I've decided to start copying over the reviews that I wrote for my Librarything catalog. Since LT will only let me review books I own, this space will give me the opportunity to review borrowed books and books I no longer own.

So, here's my first one:
Architecture: From Prehistory to Post-Modernism : The Western Tradition by Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman


This was my architectural history textbook during undergrad. Its comprehensive, especially up through the 80's, and well illustrated. My problem with this book is the, in my opinion, silly re-branding of Post-Modernism as "Second" Modernism. I recognize that all history books are inherently subjective, but I think that this is a thinly veiled attempt to promote a movement that the author supported. He gives almost no room for criticism of Post-Modernism. Its a shame, because the book's last chapter left a bad taste in my mouth when the rest of the book was quite even-handed.

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