The fascinating story of the rise of a continent to a dominant position in the world, told apparently from a geologist's or metallurgist's view-point. A large format, generously illustrated and produced book based on the BBC serial, it presents a massive amount of information on a wide range of topics, starting with the drifting continents and the tectonic movements that threw up the continents and their minerals, and ending with an account of the World Wars and the modern energy and environmental crises. I personally found it heavy going, though, probably because of the very dense prose, replete with unfamiliar place-names and obscure architectural terms, and the sheer weight of information contained in its close on its 300 large size pages of compact type. Also, the thread of the thesis that the geological past has in large measure determined the geo-politics of the world, loses its impact when there are clearly so many alternative ways that the nations and people of the world could have conducted themselves. ( )