This accessible and stimulating account of world history since 1945 provides a framework for making sense of the political and social developments of this period. The underlying theme of the book is the tension between the world conceived as a unity and the world conceived as a diversity. From this perspective, the author discusses the impulse towards globalization in the aftermath of the Second World War, the divisions inherent in the Cord War, and the shifting allegiances and conflicts in the decades which followed. He ends with an assessment of our position with regard to world unity and disunity as the millennium approaches.