A groundbreaking history of architecture told through the relationship between buildings and energyThe story of architecture is the story of humanity. The buildings we live in from the humblest prehistoric huts to todays skyscrapers reveal our priorities and ambitions our family structures and power structures. And to an extent that hasnt been explored until now architecture has been shaped in every era by our access to energy from fire to farming to fossil fuels.In this groundbreaking history of world architecture Barnabas Calder takes us on a dazzling tour of some of the most astonishing buildings of the past fifteen thousand years from Uruk via Ancient Rome and Victorian Liverpool to Chinas booming megacities. He reveals how every building from the Parthenon to the Great Mosque of Damascus to a typical Georgian house was influenced by the energy available to its architects and why this matters.Today architecture consumes so much energy that 40 of the worlds greenhouse gas emissions come from the construction and running of buildings. If we are to avoid catastrophic climate change then now more than ever we need beautiful but also intelligent buildings and to retrofit not demolish those that remain. Both a celebration of human ingenuity and a passionate call for greater sustainability this is a history of architecture for our times.