This new edition of the seminal and best selling history of Europe's century of global ascendancy includes a new introduction and bibliography. The carefully drawn discussions are pulled together and reinforced by a new afterword. Presented in a new textbook format and thoroughly revised throughout, the survey provides students with an invaluable guide to a notoriously complex period.

Lucidly written and constructed as a series of essays, the text covers the political and economic balance of power, the mechanics of government, economy and society, states, nations, europe and the world,...