This is an excellent text as an overview of the last century. Much more concentrated on the people than on politics, it provides a different approach than the other "millenium" history books.

History is the great resouces to learn from, and this Encyclopedia, as it seems to be, would help you to learn peoples from all around the world, if you still have none such as this. Then you might be the next century's people, striving the World Wide People for the World Wide Peace in the new Millennium. Wish all the best for the World! With Sincerity

The English are often a puzzlement to us Yanks, whether we're trying to do business over there or merely reading Dorothy Sayers over here. Smith, a novelist, short story writer, and columnist, has done a pretty good job at explaining various odd English-isms, such as kippers, the jug of ale vs. the straight glass, the six kinds of football, and the tendency to reply to "Thank you," with another "Thank you." He also supplies tidy little mini-essays on quintessential English writers such as Jane Austen, Anthony Burgess, Stephen Spender, and A. J. P. Taylor -- even when they're actually Irish, like George Bernard Shaw. Considering that this book was written seventeen years ago, some of his efforts haven't worn so well, especially the essays on each of the decades of the 20th century and almost every mention of the Labour Party and of Margaret Thatcher. Still, I've always wondered what the Cotswolds were. . . .