Richard Bak's Detroit Across Three Centuries, is a detail-laden, photo-filled history of one of the world's most dynamic, innovative, intriguing, beautiful but misunderstood and troubled cities. From its beginnings as a small French colony settled in 1701 by the adventurer Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac, to its present-day position as the 10th largest city in America, the story of Detroit is told through the eyes, accomplishments and, often, anguish of the people who lived there over the past three hundred years. Not only will the reader get a glimpse of the city's past, but a look at its present and future. Detroit Across Three Centuries by Richard Bak is much more than just a coffee-table book about a big city. It's a great story about some great people who lived - and live - in a great town, from Albert Kahn to Al Kaline, Joe Louis to the Lone Ranger and Rosa Parks to Diana Ross.