What cannot be argued, however, is that Le Mans is one of the few faces of motorsport that has more or less found its way into mainstream consciousness. Most people that you speak to would have some degree of awareness that Le Mans is home to a famous car race, even if they don't know the actual format of the event or what types of cars participate.

But the fact remains that in the eyes of the general public, Le Mans is one of motorsport's flagships. And it's equally significant to a lot of manufacturers and drivers too, albeit in a different sense. At any rate, the world's most famous endurance race is upon us again this coming weekend, which makes it a good time to sit back and reflect on the past editions of the event. And this book is an exceptionally pleasant way to do it.

Veteran motoring writer Brian Laban has an obvious soft spot for Le Mans, and he has channeled this enthusiasm into an account of the event's history that is as engaging as it is informative. The coffee-table format means that the battle for space between text and image invariably falls in favour of the 'picture tells a thousand words' school, but in the main the photographs are well selected and presented. Sometimes this particular format of book relies on images as padding, but 'Le Mans 24 Hours' manages to avoid this particular trap.

So while the images may get the lion's share of the page space, conciseness is at a premium. Laban recognises this, and manages to squeeze a lot of information into the available room. Occasionally something slips through the net – it's all very well to tell us that 'John Winter' was a pseudonym, for example (p. 202), but it would have been good if the author had then told us the story behind the moniker rather than just barreling on ahead.

But incidents such as this are in the minority, and in the most part the author does a superb job of condensing what is sometimes a rather involved story into a compact yet comprehensive account.

Particularly valuable is Laban's sense of context. It would have been all too easy to simply recount the happenings of each race as it unfolded, but the author dodges this and instead creates a consistent thread following the various forces that have shaped the event to the point where it has become what it is today.

Whether it was the enforced revitalisation of the circuit facilities brought about by the devastation of the second world war, or the gradual shift in emphasis that led to the current era ruled by prototypes, or even the various factors that have been instrumental in triggering changes to the circuit layout, it is all explained here.