Notre Dame Cathedral: Nine Centuries of History

I really wanted to like this book. I have an MA in Medieval Art History plus I'm a sucker for any kind of "behind the scenes" book. So I was excited to order this, espec having seen it mentioned in the NYT. But...it didn't fulfill. First strike against it is---it's surprisingly boring. Hate to say it. But if you start w/ one of the coolest Gothic cathedrals in the world, shouldn't be hard to make a *very* readable book. Nope. The parts on construction are good...but the stuff about liturgy processions and Christian/church power thru-out Europe seemed very presumptive to me. Yet I'd say the most damning charge is the awful translation. If you're going to go to the trouble of carefully releasing this (a translated edition) to capitalize on the terrible fire (as the Forward mentions), you gotta make it good! In other words, we're no longer talking some book you'd pick up in the N.D. gift shop, in French. Many times the text reads as a very literal translation of complex phrases (and I speak French pretty well). When you read the English, the individual words sound OK...but strung together as a sentence they're meaningless architectural babble. This is inexcusable...almost as if the authors (and translator) never took the time to step back and glance at the big picture. Finally, as a prev. reviewer mentioned, book is *small* (6x6 inch). This has the unfortunate effect of placing more emphasis on the text...and not the photos and illustrations (since there's little room). So the bad text gets more stage time than is merited. Buy, enjoy, arm-chair travel to Paris w/ a glass of wine in hand...but don't read it too carefully or you'll get irritated.

This is a great book! Graphics are wonderful and detail is very good. I like how it sets out the chronology and progression of construction. My only disappointment (hence the 4 out of 5 stars) is its a small format book. Like the 6" x 6" style. That doesn't take away from the content and authors knowledge it just would have been more impressive to be larger or even coffee table size.

Great art and design

Brought back memories of when I visited this aw inspiring building!

What a marvelous little collection of everything you could ever want to know about the icon of Paris. Thankfully I was able to see it many years on vacation, and this book in a brilliant manner helps to make that visit even more memorable. Thanks for all the work and due diligence that went into this comprehensive description.

The text of this book is not aimed at the layman. It is aimed at Medieval Architectural specialist who knows the difference between a transept and a choir. There is no introductory chapter on where Notre Dame is, the layout of a gothic cathedral, the history of the gothic style.What it presents is a pre fire summary of the hypothesis of time line of the building and modifications of Notre Dame. To do this it uses both text and an amazing set of illustrations.If I have one objection to the book as a monograph, it is its lack of airing of alternative hypotheses for the various building stages and the evidence used to reach the conclusions the authors did.