"The Statesman's Year-Book" made its first appearance in the year when, in America, Lincoln was elected President of the Union for the second time, when Jefferson Davis was President of the Confederate States and Palmerston was in his second ministry. This is the statistical and historical annual of the states of the world for the year 1989-90, catering mainly for a British public. Divided into two, it covers international organizations and specific countries of the world from A-Z, concentrating on political, economic and social conditions of the world. The contributors are virtually all government departments of the world's states.