What are the most important developments and dilemmas in the world today? What bearing do these issues and processes have on our current lives and future prospects? And how can an exploration of world history help us engage the opportunities and challenges presented by the current workings of the world? Beginning and ending in the present, we will explore these questions by examining how historians and other social scientists characterize the processes that have connected and divided people around the world since the early fifteenth century and the social struggles that have taken place over alternative ways of organizing these connections and divisions. The aim is to make it easier for you to identify and assess not only (a) major continuities and changes in the workings of the world since the fifteenth century but also (b) the workings of broad social processes and relations, whatever the period or groups of people that concern you, and (c) the complexities of the contemporary world, your place within it, and the possibilities available for collectively shaping future change.