The world was still reeling from the ravages of the century's first Great War when a dramatic and inexorable chain of events set it afire once again. In the Second World War, forty-six million people would lost their lives, and deep and lasting upheavals would cast the world's social and political life into turmoil for decades to come. Martin Gilbert's three-volume history of the century continues with an enthralling narrative that documents the attempts to preserve human values, to maintain the rule of law, and to uphold the rights and dignity of the individual. Gilbert shows how the conflicts of nations and the aspirations of their rulers served both to threaten humankind through war and civil war, in many regions of the globe, and to create a fairer and more fulfilling life for hundreds, even thousands, of millions of people. For more than four decades, the United States and the Soviet Union -- joint victors in the struggle against Germany and Japan--struggled to establish the primacy of their respective systems, while the specter of nuclear war threatened to become a terrible reality. The world was still reeling from the ravages of the century's first Great War when a dramatic and inexorable chain of events set it afire once again. In the Second World War, forty-six million people would lost their lives, and deep and lasting upheavals would cast the world's social and political life into turmoil for decades to come. Martin Gilbert's three-volume history of the century continues with an enthralling narrative that documents the attempts to preserve human values, to maintain the rule of law, and to uphold the rights and dignity of the individual. Gilbert shows how the conflicts of nations and the aspirations of their rulers served both to threaten humankind through war and civil war, in many regions of the globe, and to create a fairer and more fulfilling life for hundreds, even thousands, of millions of people. For more than four decades, the United States and the Soviet Union--joint victors in the struggle against Germany and Japan--struggled to establish the primacy of their respective systems, while the specter of nuclear war threatened to become a terrible reality.