Umberto Scerrato

Another opulent volume from the Monuments of Civilization series, itself a work of art with huge photographs in shades of brown to portray the architectural wonders under discussion. Covers the entire gamut, from Andalusia and northern Africa, through the Middle East and Central Asia, to India under the Sultanates and Mughals. Each chapter offers a bonus in the form of a rapid review of the socio-political situations of the times. A minor quibble may be that some of the illustrations are not on the same pages as the corresponding text, and the descriptions themselves often depend on overly dense technical terminology, and could have done with more specific illustrations to give a better idea of what is being talked about.… (mere)