To navigate the ever-shifting paths up the mountain of art history, one needs the intellectual equivalent of sturdy shoes and a strong staff. This well-known German overview, in its first English translation, provides much of the needed support. Intended for both the lay reader and the scholar, the text traces the discipline and its major figures from ancient Greece to the 20th century and is, of necessity, as much a history of art itself as it is of art historiography. Methodology and ideology vary with changing times and tastes, but the continual sense of vitality, renewal, and continuity are made very clear. The inclusion of vivid biographical -e.g., the violent death of Winckelmann and the eccentricities of Ruskin--give an added dimension to the work. This is an accessible and useful resource for most public libraries and all art collections.

- Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York