Charles McClendon’s recent book sets forth, perhaps for the first time in English, a substantial prehistory of medieval architecture from late Roman Antiquity through the “Dark Ages” and the Carolingian Renaissance. Ranging over nearly a half-millennium, he focuses on the period between 600 and 900 in explaining the roots of Romanesque architecture. A lavish scholarly apparatus includes a plethora of carefully placed photographic illustrations, many line drawings, and numerous measured ground plans that closely support the meticulously documented, well-written text. An eloquent celebration of a little-known era of architectural history that is plainly meant for the enjoyment and edification of students, scholars, and the general public, this volume should grace every serious library’s shelves, whether private or institutional. A comprehensive introduction opens the two-part presentation of the origins of medieval architecture. The first part, “The ‘Dark Ages’” consists of four chapters: “The Legacy of Late Antiquity,” “The Roman Response to the Cult of Relics,” “Romanitas and the Barbarian West,” and “The Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England.” The second part, entitled “The Carolingian era” contains five chapters: “Symbols of the New Alliance,” “Aachen and Rome: The Poles of an Empire,” “Private Patronage and Personal Taste,” “The Monastic Ideal and Reality,” and “The...