A concise, pithy primer to the epic events of the last fifty years, illustrated throughout with the best cartoons of the era from Punch and the New Yorker Globalization is the buzzword of the hour - ill-defined but inescapable, it denotes the spread of the Anglo-Saxon capitalist system across the world. Christopher Columbus's crossing of the Atlantic in 1492 paved the way, and Western nations have raced to dominate the world marketplace ever since. This is the easiest, sanest, and most amusing introduction to economic history in the world. It not only makes a sometimes dry subject painless, it makes it positively enjoyable as well. This brilliant selection of 125 cartoons from both sides of the Atlantic deftly and wittily illustrates key themes in the progress of globalization. With an entertaining year-by-year summary of economic and political events over the last 50 years, and a fascinating chronology of globalization's milestones from Columbus onwards, this deceptively lighthearted guide is also a fact-packed work of reference. Buy it, read it, and laugh as you learn. Click here to visit the author's website which includes extracts from the book.