This is an amazing book that every serious student of modern history ought to read. Understand that it is an undertaking. The book in hardcover form is over 1300 pages. The detail is, as a previous reviewer suggests, difficult to find elsewhere. From this perspective, the book is hugely important. Professor Quigley also advances some compelling explantions for history that still resonate today, such as the existence of the Pakistan-Peruvian Axis, which has promulgated the cancer of Islamic culture throughout the world.

However, it is certainly true that Quigley's massive undertaking is flawed with his obvious misunderstanding of macroeconmics. His prescription for Keynsian planning and the heralding of the success of planned economies relative to lassez faire economies has probably influenced much of the thinking of America's elite for decades. Will those elites finally wake up to the reality that socialism doesn't work? Or, do they understand that socialism does work well, so long as you're in charge of the socialist government. The next century will be the story of how these questions are answered by history.

The book is excellent and well worth the time and effort. I wish Professor Quigley was still around to comment on how things have changed since this work was completed.