This dazzling overview of a turbulent century explores both dramatic events and underlying trends. Despite a terrible two-stage ´European civil war´ and the traumatic rise and fall of communism, wealth has increased dramatically alongside a four-fold leap in population, women´s lives have been transformed, America has assumed undisputed political and cultural leadership - and China is now clearly awaiting its moment. J. M. Roberts´s earlier Penguin History of the World was a publishing landmark which informed and delighted readers all over the planet.