A Crash Course is a cheats' sheet on architecture's history. It will arm you with the terms and names that will add credibility to your opinions.

most architectural history tends to deal only with the visual … in preference to all the pragmatic functional issues of these buildings

and has the good sense to include discussion of the construction methods and materials used in a basically chronological survey of architecture that is told in double-page sections, each dealing with a period, architect or style of architecture.

Many of these sections are engaging titled: Temples and Other Erectheions; There is Nothing Like a Dome; Adam Family Values; and Et Tu Brute. In addition to the wit in many of the section titles, there are boxes shaded in various colours for background information, biographical notes, style tips, and French provides clear illustrations with decorative details and structural elements literally pointed out.

Do not think, however, that French is going to talk down to anyone. "The clearly understandable static space of the perfect circle, and the processional space of the rectilinear nave…" is a sentence beginning any self-respecting fraud would be well advised to learn by rote.

The general reader will learn about the relationship between patronage and decoration in the fifteenth-century; that it was Louis Sullivan and not any of the others who said "form follows function"; that the UK's Peter Smithson was responsible for Brutalism (may I borrow your horse whip?); and that we should blame Walter Gropius for tall apartment blocks with wastelands between, aka, housing commission estates (would you happen to have any thumb-screws?).

Not being especially fond of architects (they are about as welcome as cockroaches or fringe benefits tax) there are a couple of (predictable) grumbles with French: she omits to mention that F. Lloyd Wright's buildings tend to leak; and as much as she praises Le Corbusier's Unité d' Habitation French doesn't explain people so disliked living there that the building had to be demolished as a failure.

But the defence of architecture is not French's aim (and would take many, many more pages). Even the members of the Harry Seidler Demolition Society will find their letters of objection to Blues Point Tower and the Horizon building sounding much more informed after spending a few hours with Architecture: A Crash Course.

French reminds us that some architects do get it right-you can take your pick from the illustrations and discussions in this book-and reminds us that Prince Charles' twitty turn-back-the-clock-ism is not the only response to recent architecture.

There is no finer endorsement of this pert book than saying that if the enemy likes it, it must have something very good going for it.

James Craig

Other books about architecture:

- Witold Rybczynski's works on architecture tell a more human story than Le Corbusier, Gropius, Smithson or Harry S. would enjoy. The Most Beautiful House in the World, Penguin 0 140105 66 2 RRP $15.95 [9780140105667] is an account of the design of his own country house; Home: A Short History of an Idea, Penguin 0 140102 31 0 RRP $29.95 [9780140102314] describes how people have lived and architects have designed for them; and Looking Around: A Journey Through Architecture, Penguin 0 140168 89 3 RRP $18.75 [9780140168891] describes how people and buildings can live together harmoniously

- Icons of Architecture, Peribo 3 791319 49 3 RRP $70.00 [9783791319490]

- Tournikiotis, Historiography of Modern Architecture, MIT Press 0 262201 17 8 - price unavailable at time of writing - [9780262201179]

- Pearman, Contemporary World Architecture, Phaidon 0 714837 43 1 RRP $125.00 [9780714837437]

- Kronenburg, Portable Architecture, Jacaranda Wiley 0 471984 22 1 RRP $65.00 [9780471984221]

- Jones, Architecture and the Environment, Laurence King UK 1 856691 03 9 RRP $135.00 [9781856691031]

- Glancey, 20th Century Architecture, Carlton Books 1 858685 19 2 RRP $59.95 [9781858685199]

- Vickers, Key Moments in Architecture, Hamlyn 0 600592 12 X RRP $45.00 [9780600592129