This book is the first of its kind to discuss the history of the Balkan Peninsula from late antiquity to the height of the Ottoman era by focusing on architecture as its principal gauge. In doing so, it transcends various established conventions in scholarship to present the architectural heritage in the Balkans in a manner that is accessible and comprehensible. Throughout the book architecture is viewed as a function of distinctive needs (social, political, religious), distinctive means (economic, technical know-how, material availability) and distinctive goals (aesthetic, propagandistic, protective). As a result, the book covers the full range of architectural enterprises, from simple residential buildings, to public monumental structures; from fortifications, to utilitarian buildings (cisterns, bridges, etc). The urban context of architecture is emphasized, while its role in rural settings is used as a gauge of other distinctive phenomena. Illustrated with several hundreds of photographs and drawings, most of them specially commissioned, the book presents a generally unknown body of material in a distinctive, unprecedented manner.