Includes bibliographical references (pages 282-284) and index.
1 Orgins--2 Barbaric Splendour: the first civilization, 4000 BC to fourth century AD--3 The Geometry of Immortality: Ancient Egypt, 3200 BC to first century AD--4 The Holy Mountain and the Sacred Womb: Southern Asia, 2500 BC to eighteenth century AD--5 Puzzles and Modules: China and Japan, third century BC to twentieth century AD--6 Ritual of Blood: Pre-Hispanic America, 1200 BC to sixteenth century AD--7 The Landscape of the Gods, Ancient Greece, fifth century BC to the first century AD--8 The Authority of Competence: Rome, fourth century BC to fifth century AD--9 The Worshipping Community: early Christian and Byzantine, fourth to fifteenth century--10 The Order and the Sanctuary: Romanesque, ninth to twelfth century--11 The Flowering of the Desert: Islam, seventh to twentieth century--12 The Metaphysics of Light: Gothic, twelfth to sixteenth century--13 The Scale of Human Perfection: Renaissance Italy, fifteenth to sixteenth century--14 Urbanity crosses the Alps: spread of the Renaissance, fifteenth to seventeenth century--15 Drama: Baroque and Rococo, seventeenth to eighteenth century--16 The Prophets of Elegance: Romantic Classicism, eighteenth to nineteenth century--17 How the Pioneers became self-reliant: Americas and beyond, seventeenth to eighteenth century--18 The Rise of the Iron Masters: the search for a style, nineteenth to 1914--19 Expectancy: the turn of the century, c.1870 to 1920--20 Function and Anonymity: the International Style, c.1918 to 1970--Many Directions--the pluralistic world of persionalism and technology, the present day.