Eight volumes: 'The Dawn of Civilization', The Birth of Western Civilization', 'The Age of the Renaissance', 'The Age of Expansion', 'The Eighteenth Century', 'The Nineteenth Century', 'The Twentieth Century' and 'American Civilisation'; monumental Cold War version of history where progress is mapped from the Stone Age, via the Middle East, the Classical World through the European centuries and on to America; each volume has a separate editor, between nine and 14 contributors, overall 90 contributors, with, for a distinctly different experience to an online search, 5,400 illustrations, 1,520 in colour, 3,800 photographs, engravings, drawings and maps, and, for volume 1, 110 original reconstructions.
