Although a third of this book is devoted to the twentieth century, the author's aim is to offer an analysis that covers the entire history of Christian art and architecture from their earliest inceptions. He is clearly widely read, and seems equally competent in discussion of major contemporary architects, baroque interest in preaching or in arguments over whether early Christian art was influenced or not by emperor worship. Given that his own particular primary competence is in liturgy (he is a professor of liturgy at the Catholic University of America), inevitably the most commonly applied test is liturgical effectiveness. That makes him raise some fascinating questions about the nature of buildings, for example about the way in which basilicas may have come to be seen as spiritual pathways because of change in their principal point of access on conversion to Christian churches or again how the fragility of Gothic architecture may have helped to dissolve its worship into a presence that extended beyond the church. Such a focus has, however, also its limitations. It means that wider theological factors are seldom addressed, for example how different theories of atonement or conceptions of the after-life might likewise have exercised an impact. Again, because modern liturgists tend to be preoccupied with possible tensions between priestly authority and congregational participation, it becomes all too easy to assume that issues of authority are also the major wider social influence. The result is too little attention to positions in philosophy or science, while impact from wider cultural assumptions is usually ignored, as, for example, baroque engagement with the metaphorical potential of playfulness and sexuality. None of this, however, is to decry the value of this book. There is much to learn.