The French Revolution; the industrial revolution; nations and nationalist movements; the Risorgimento in Italy; the social classes; imperialism/colonialism; the Great War; the Bolshevik revolution and the Soviet Union; Fascism; the Second World War; Nazism and the extermination of the Jews; totalitarianism; the history of women and of gender; globalization and cultural conflicts; theories of civilization. Alberto Mario Banti selects fifteen key questions to introduce us to contemporary history, informed by the authors and the works that have proposed the most important interpretations of these major historical phases.