Unlike many views of Italian architecture that focus on discrete and separate periods, this survey has been structured by Kirk (architectural history, American U. in Rome) along a chronological continuum. Volume one begins with the architecture of the enlightenment, 1750-1800, and continues with Napoleon's time, 1800-1815, and restoration & romanticism, 1815-1860, and concludes with the unification and the nation's capitals, from 1860-1900. Volume two begins with the architects of the avante-garde in the early 1900s, then architecture during the Fascism regime, and the post-war reconstruction. The final chapter addresses modern Italian architecture, and ends with a discussion of Rome's master plan of 2000, which has been called "a new master plan for growth for a city that does not need to grow."