Customer Rating:  
Summary: Excellent update of superb old landscape photos
Comment: I was delighted by 'Britain Then & Now,' Philip Ziegler's book on the amazing Francis Frith landscape photos of Victorian Britain, most of which have been updated by superb contemporary color landscape photos by John Cleare, or by landscape views taken in about the same position, say in 1900, 1920 & 1950. I have almost never seen this 'then & now' format used for sites in Britain, though it has been very frequently used for sites here in the United States. The changes to the landscape over so many decades are stunning, often shocking. Discover, for example, what is hidden behind the garish neon signage of Piccadilly Circus !! Not a book which is likely please defenders of advertising, modernism, or "the ubiquitous motor vehicle," but which will not only please, but delight the rest of us. Architecture is supposed to be "the most public of the Fine Arts," yet one has to wonder how respectfully Britain's marvelous legacy of this artwork has been treated, after reading this volume.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A fascinating but flawed look at the past.
Comment: A picture paints a thousand words, and Ziegler uses the pictures of the Francis Frith collection to paint a fascinating portrait of life in Britain as it developed over the last 140 years. Photographs of particular sites are often grouped together in chronological order, showing how these changes affected real cities, towns and villages over time. However, I have to subtract a few points from my overall rating of the book for Ziegler's tendency to judge these changes by aesthetic standards, a habit which became more annoying as the book progressed.
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