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. By the time the Normans arrived in Ireland in the late twelfth century, this was crucial: Dublin maintained the best communications between the English crown and its new lordship in Ireland. Throughout the medieval and early modern periods, the city"s importance was entirely ecclesiastical and strategic. It was not a centre of learning, or fashion or commerce. 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.