Since 1945 the world has undergone vast and fundamental change. The collapse of colonial empires and the tensions of the Cold War produced great political turbulence in many areasnulland integrative movements in others. Now the end of the Cold War has sparked off the breakdown of one of the superpowers and much turmoil elsewhere.

To chart a way through these dramatic developments, leading scholars from Britain, Canada, the United States, and Australia present up-to-date surveys of the experience of each of the world's eleven geopolitical regions. They also consider the contemporary character of sovereign statehood, looking on the one hand at its enduring geographical and psychological bases and on the other at how it has been affected by economic interdependence and ethnicity. The result is an authoritative survey of the international scene during the second half of the twentieth century.