Occasionally, a television series on history is accompanied by an excellent book. Jacob Bronowski, anchorman for TheAscent of Man (1973), produced a book of the same name, the more remarkable because it lucidly explained complicated topics in the history of science. John Kenneth Galbraith’s challenging and quietly amusing The Age of Uncertainty (1977) came from another BBC series. Now the history of the twentieth century – or essentially the first half of it – is told and interpreted in this fascinating book by Niall Ferguson, a talented British historian who is a professor at Harvard University. The British television series, based on the book, will presumably soon arrive in Australia.