Dublin started as a Viking trading settlement in the middle of the 10th century. Location was the key to its quick ascendancy; it commanded the shortest crossing to a major port in Britain. The foundation of Trinity College is 1592 was a landmark event but the city did not really develop until the 18th century.Then the series of fine, wide Georgian streets and noble public buildings that are Dublin's greatest boast were built. The union years saw Dublin  decline. Fine old houses were gradually abandoned by the aristocracy and became hideous tenement warrens. By the time Joyce immortalized it, it had become "the centre of paralysis". Independence restored some of its natural function but there was still much poverty and shabbiness. Only since the 1990s has there been real evidence of a city reinventing and revitalizing itself. “A sumptuous production in equal part photograph, illustration and text.” - Irish Examiner “Twelve highly readable chapters of the political, social and economic history of Dublin from earliest times to the present, illustrated in color with more than thirty maps,” - The Irish Times