Iceland offers a unique opportunity for a scholar of settlement and urban planning; it is small and sparsely populated, and eminently suited to studying how society, nature, and planning interact. Valsson (planning, U. of Iceland) starts with the first settlement in the year 874 and continues to the present, showing how settlement interacted with nature, how trade, religious and governmental systems and the land itself shaped development, how urban centers came to be, and how Reykjavik was a conscious choice for a capital city. He also describes how the country eventually developed national systems and plans based on social improvements that continue today. Valsson includes 1,200 illustrations, photos, and maps and a handy list of planners in Iceland. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Company. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)