From history's most remarkable men and women to bloody wars and genocides, this illustrated overview brings to life an incredible range of human experience across the millennia. Jeremy Black sheds new light on our understanding of the past, covering the birth of agriculture in the Nile Valley, the development of empires in Mesopotamia, the fall of Rome, the advance of science in the Islamic world, the rise of international trade along the Silk Roads, and the conflagration of the world wars.