Sir John Summerson's great book, Architecture in Britain, was published in 1953 and remained in print until the end of the century, gaining canonical status as the central text on the subject. Yet, even in relation to Summerson's wider oeuvre, the book was notable for its concentration on architectural style and aesthetic judgments, to the virtual exclusion of economics, society, functions, clients, craftsmen, technique, materials, building archaeology and context. How valuable or intellectually sustainable is architectural history when it is so constrained in its approach? Does the connoisseur's approach to architecture, in which historic buildings and architects's careers are treated primarily as subjects for the connoisseur or critic's aesthetic judgment, have any real intellectual validity or social value? How did Summerson's judgments affect or support the contemporary dismissal of late Georgian and Victorian architecture, and how do these judgments seem today? Has this approach already passed into history – how has the subject developed since – and what can we still learn from Summerson, his great book, and his approach?