Please recommend a good book for the layman on how politics and world
events shaped artistic epochs through the ages. For example, what was
it about the Victorians -- their ambitions, their ethics, their faith, their
scientific achievements, and so on -- that produced the Victorian
style in terms of architecture, furniture design, and art? The broader
the survey of world history, the better.

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Clarification of Question by mccook-ga on 17 Oct 2004 06:11 PDT

Pinkfreud and other researchers: Thanks for the comment. Let me try
restricting the subject to architecture and furntiture design. I know
there are many books on the subject. What I'm after is a reliable
recommendation -- personal or otherwise -- of a book that discusses
how either world events or other forces affected tastes, and therefore
design. The realm would be Europe and North America. As noted in the
question, the thrust would be: What was it about the Victorians that
made them like Victorian design? The broader the scope the better, but
even a book that confines itself to Western Europe from the middle
ages onward would be an acceptable answer

I recommend these two excellent books by Sarah Burns. They do not go
"through the ages," but they are very insightful and
thought-provoking:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300078595

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0520238214