AnyBook4Less.com	Find the Best Price on the Web Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money Keyword AuthorISBN

Title: The Cathedral Builders (Harper colophon books) by Jean Gimpel, Teresa Waugh ISBN: 0-06-091158-1 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 01 April, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00

Your Country USA Canada United Kingdom Australia Austria Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands Switzerland Currency AutoUSD CAD GBP EUR AUD CHF Delivery Only cheapest delivery All delivery options Include Used Books Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: a fascinating and full meal on the gothic era
Comment: This is the best book I read on the mysterious movement known as the gothic era, which has long fascinated me. It is written by an independent scholar with a quirky, yet erudite, point of view who writes very well, with the Cartesian clarity that we expect of French intellectuals.

I found it absolutely fascinating, as he explained the politics that gave rise to the astonishing building projects that involved entire communities for centuries and whose artisans are, with the exception of Villard, wholly unkown. Gimpel then goes through the crytic notebook of Villard - the only true record of the era's methods besides the works themselves - deciphering it for non-specialists like myself. In his view, built during a late-medieval economic boom, the cathedrals used a new kind of geometry and practical experimentation that foreshadowed the discoveries of the Renaissance. Some would even argue that the gothic cathedral architects and builders presaged the scientific method that emerged during the Enlightenment. Gimpel provides plenty of fodder for that interpretation.

Warmly recommended.

Rating: 2
Summary: A political book!
Comment: If you are expecting a history of cathedral building, look elsewhere. This is slow and a bit dull, concentrates on extraneous issues ( the ego od Suger gets more coverage than St Denis itself), and even worse -- it's political. Yes, marxist-french anti-American screeds in a book on cathedrals. Oy.