From the time when our ancestors took their first tentative steps out of Africa, to the day when human beings set foot on the moon; from the domestication of the first donkey to the cloning of Dolly the sheep; and from the building of the pyramids to the designing of the world wide web this book is not just a history of the world, it is a history for the world. Informed by the most recent historical and archaeological research, the book focuses not on the conventional small change of Kings and Queens, battles and political manoeuvres, but on developments that have really shaped the lives of human beings around the globe: the Neolithic revolution in agriculture, the invention of writing, the rise and fall of empires, the birth of great religions, the industrial revolution. Finally, the book asks whether we have really changed, or are we just stone-age people living in a space age we have made but cannot control.