This richly illustrated comprehensive edition contains an analysis of a multi-thousand-year period of human history: the prehistoric era and theories of the origin of man, the beginning of agriculture in the Nile Valley and the emergence of states in the Mezhyrichcha; the fall of Ancient Rome and the development of science in the Islamic world; international trade along the Great Silk Road and the Age of Enlightenment, world wars and revolutions of the New Age and the problems of modernity. Inspired by the latest discoveries in the field of historiography, Professor Jeremy Black analyzes the events of our history, thanks to which the reader will have the opportunity to look at both the past and the present from a new perspective