Although the book is titled an itroductory study, I would not reccomend to anyone start a journey into the Ancient Rome with McDonald's work, unless you are one of those persons who have deep fascination for Classical studies and ancient architecture. This book rewards an attentive reader and in the course of reading I was reffering constantly to Roman historians such as Seutonius and Tacitus. Through the careful analysis of the four great monuments of antiquity (the Domus Aurea, Domus Augustana, Trajan's Markets and the Pantheon), all centered in Rome, an author clearly shows a connections between symbolic meaning of the space, its forms, and construction techniques. This analysis is supplied with very descriptive illustrations, plans, and major dimensions of the explored monuments. In my opinion, this is one of the very few fundamental works on the Architecture of the Roman Empire that is available in English.

The beautiful textbook hardly needs an answer key. It is a wonderful book, and highly recommended. However, if an answer key is needed, how could it cost $8.00? It is merely a flimsy pamphlet. The text--which costs $38.00--is a beautiful, hardcovered textbook. It is truly unfortunate that the "answer key" should cost more than 20% of the price of the text itself.

It may be over priced but still it is impossible to use the textbook without this answer key. It is what it is. . . the answers to the questions in the textbook. I was glad to find it available.

The textbook is extremely difficuilt to read. The exceptions from the articles which are supposed to help in the understanding of the case complicate issue even more. You have to supplement reading of this book with hornbook or Emanuel/Gilbert. If you can avoid this book feel yourself lucky