In this third volume of his four-volume history of the modern world, as it has been produced by the development and expansion of the West, Eric Hobsbawm combines vast erudition with a graceful prose style to re-create the epoch that laid the basis for the twentieth century. “Though written by a professional historian,” Hobsbawm writes of his own work, “[it] is addressed not to other academics, but to all who wish to understand the world and who believe history is important for this purpose.” —from the back cover