From World War I to globalization, the political, economic, social and cultural dynamics of the contemporary era, in an account that combines historical analysis with original sources, documents and images. Divided into fifteen chapters the guide deals with the period from 1914 to today. In it the actions and mentalities of men and women are projected onto the tapestry of the ‘great history’, becoming extraordinarily expressive objects of analysis: communication, consumption advertising, arts, lifestyles, sport, language, science—in addition to issues of great symbolic and political weight, such as sexual identity or racial discrimination—become the themes of this critical analysis of events. The author focuses on the dynamics prevalent in the West, with a special focus on the description of the transformations outside of Europe and the United States, from the phase of European colonialism to the processes of decolonization, the redefinition of new collective identities in more recent decades, the rise of countries such as Japan, China and India, and the changes in religious sentiment and politics in the multifaceted Islamic world. Sources and documents are an integral part of the text and offer the reader an immediate documented idea of the cultural and communicative atmosphere. The volume ends with brief profiles of the noteworthy personalities or eminent historians featured in the text and with explanations of the ‘technical’ terms used. Each chapter concludes with a synthetic bibliography.