Great American Cities Past and Present

The appealing concept of this coffee-table volume is to compare old photographs of North American cities with modern ones, but the execution is extremely disappointing. The focus of the book is unclear; first, it appears to make an argument for historic preservation, but this is overtaken quickly by an uncritical celebration of urban building for its own sake. Promises to explore and explain changes in urban history and lifestyle are never delivered on. The authors do not appear to have any particular expertise in architectural history (their previous books have included titles on firearms, bicycling, bow hunting, and locomotives), and this shows throughout. Picture quality is uneven; it seems no photographs were taken especially for this book and generally come from stock or public-domain sources. More disturbingly, some captions contain factual inaccuracies or parrot text available in other reference sources.