This history of the world since 1945 captures the ground-level drama of events and the larger contours of change in a period of global transformation. Global change accelerated at an unprecedented rate in the last half of the 20th century, affecting evey aspect of daily life, public and private, throughout the world. The trajectory of change points in different directions, with the world growing at once more connected and more fragmented. Commerce and migrations, television and the World Wide Web, suggest a story of growing interconnnection. The proliferation of nation-states, the divisions rooted in religion, race, and material inequality, tell one of separation and conflict. This history captures both themes and grounds them in the people and events of the last fifty years of the 20th century. Kennedy and Kruschev, Mao and Mobutu, Rachel Carson, Indira Gandhi and Elvis all come to life.