Introduction : Western civilization in its world setting -- Western civilization to 1914 -- The Russian empire to 1917 -- The buffer fringe -- The First World War, 1914-1918 -- The Versailles system and the return to "normalcy," 1919-1929 -- Finance, commercial policy, and business activity, 1897-1947 -- International socialism and the Soviet challenge -- Germany from kaiser to Hitler, 1913-1945 -- Britain : the background to appeasement, 1900-1939 -- Changing economic patterns -- The policy of appeasement, 1931-1936 -- The disruption of Europe -- World War II : the tide of aggression, 1939-1941 -- World War II : the ebb of aggression, 1941-1945 -- The new age -- Nuclear rivalry and the Cold War : American atomic supremacy, 1945-1950 -- Nuclear rivalry and the Cold War : the race for the H-bomb, 1950-1957 -- The new era, 1957-1964 -- Tragedy and hope : the future in perspective