Theodore H. Von Laue's stunningly original and controversial book approaches the dynamics of twentieth-century history from an entirely new perspective by proposing that the little-understood historic process known as the world revolution of Westernization has caused the global violence and warfare of this century. Accounting for world wars, the rise of communism and fascism, decolonization, Third World dictatorships, and contemporary terrorism, Von Laue describes the twin processes of the expansion of Western power and the emergence of global interdependence. His journey through the twentieth century begins in the 1870s with the British raj in India; includes the colonization of Africa, the communist and fascist "counter-revolutions," the Great Depression, Stalinism and Hitler's unleashing of World War II, and the post-war emergence of the United States as the foremost superpower; and ends with the nuclear arms race, the most dangerous of all global tensions. As a challenging history of the contemporary age, this book will make readers think more globally and compassionately about the complex issues that threaten our peace and survival as we prepare to enter the twenty-first century.