NONFICTION - Aug. 29, 1993

THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY edited by John Prest. (Oxford University Press: $35; 404 pp.) This lavishly illustrated book is far more than the coffee-table decoration that it looks to be at first glance. Each chapter of the text surrounding the countless black-and-white photographs and the twenty-five color plates is written by an acknowledged authority in the field, and seductive as the graphic attractions are--who doesn’t take a look at the pictures first?--the text itself is equally illuminating. The individual chapters deal not only with the city of Oxford and the university, but the university’s contributions over the years to religion, classical studies and the arts and sciences. For the armchair traveler and for anyone who hasn’t been to Oxford in recent years, the architecture of the younger colleges, such as Wolfson, and the new buildings of the old, such as the Florey building of Queen’s--are a trip in themselves.