In A Global History of Architecture (Wiley, 2006) Francis D.K. Ching (with coauthors Mark M. Jarzombek and Vikramaditya Prakash, Assoc. AIA) provides a fresh historical survey of the last 5,000 years of building—from ancient Chinese civilization to the postmodern world. The book includes more than 1,000 photographs and maps as well as 1,500 of Ching’s own hand-drawn illustrations.

In this podcast, Ching discusses this enormous, one-volume work, which Publishers Weekly called “unabashedly huge in its proportions” and both authoritative and accessible to the casual reader: “like a down-to-earth conversation . . . a strong addition to the field, an example of successfully going macro without getting muddled.”

To minimize Eurocentric biases, Ching and his coauthors organized the work chronologically rather than geographically. Beginning in 3500 BCE, the work spans the globe according to chronological time periods, or “timecuts,” occasionally discussing certain styles and major historical periods but dwelling primarily on specific architectural works. The time spans grow shorter and denser as they approach the present day, covering the richness and diversity of human history through every “modern” period of architecture. The authors, Publishers Weekly states, “aren't afraid to get into the meaning and emotion behind the architecture, addressing its passionate, intangible aspects, as in their discussion of irony's place in postmodern design.”