The Guitar is the ultimate guide for players, collectors or fans of the guitar. The Guitar traces the history and anatomy of this popular instrument from its earliest pre-Christian ancestry through the first guitars of the 15th century, Torres and the birth of the modern classical guitar, right up to the most recent solid-body electrics and their associated amplification - so crucial to the contemporary guitarist. The book also includes a section profiling the world's greatest performers and self-contained lessons where new ideas are clearly presented using jargon-free text, and are reinforced by easy-to-follow exercises of increasing complexity. Finally, a major feature of The Guitar is its chord dictionary, which features over 400 different chord shapes.