Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years

In this freewheeling, selective, iconoclastic history of the world from the 10th century to the present, Fernandez-Armesto concludes that the West's domination of global affairs was far from inevitable and is likely to abate as economic power and initiatives in technology and ideas shift decisively to Pacific rim nations. Editor of The Times Guide to the Peoples of Europe, the author first chronicles the slow, fitful consolidation of Islamic civilization, imperial China, medieval Europe and the Byzantine empire. The great age of European expansion unfolds here in a world full of aggressive competitors.