The fascinating evolution of house forms from the Stone Age to the present.

"Part architecture, part history, and part anthropology, this encyclopedic book limns the story of housing around the world from the pre-urban dwellings of nomadic, semi-nomadic, and sedentary agricultural societies to the present. Ancient urban dwellings were inward looking, ranged around a courtyard. Until fairly recently, these dwelling types survived in indigenous urban house forms in the Islamic world, India, China, and the Iberian peninsula and Latin America. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, however, outward-looking house forms replaced the ancient form in most of Europe and the New World.

This book demonstrates, through discussions on sustainability and regional identity, and via a series of case studies, that the courtyard housing form has a future as well as a past.