Published on the eve of the third millennium, this is the first major new history atlas produced in the English language for more than 20 years. Its timing is no coincidence, for never has a truly international history been more needed. As the gathering pace of "globalization" demands a greater awareness of "whole world" history than ever before, a wealth of courses in world history are being taught in schools and colleges across the English-speaking world. And an explosion of new research on history beyond the Western world has left existing history atlases and reference books increasingly out of date.

Oxford's Atlas of World History is the result of more than three years' intensive work by a specialized team of scholars, editors, and cartographers. It presents the story of humanity in its physical setting, from the evolution of Homo sapiens through the last year of the 20th century. Truly international in its approach, the atlas incorporates the latest research on Asian, African, and Latin American history, as well as the traditional core of European and North American events.

The atlas is divided into six parts. The first five deal with the eras studied by world historians today: The Ancient World, The Medieval World, The Early Modern World, The Age of Revolutions, and The Twentieth Century. Each part opens with an introduction highlighting the main themes of the period, followed by individual spreads covering specific regions and events with maps, text, illustrations, and captions.

The sixth and final part is a reference section containing a wealth of additional information. The Timecharts list events by region from pre-history to the present day, and the gazetteer of Events, People, and Places provides more than 600 concise encyclopedic entries. A comprehensive index of more than 8,000 entries includes numerous alternative name forms used over the centuries. The atlas closes with a Bibliography that provides a book list for suggested further reading.

The atlas contains some 450 specially created color maps illustrating the major themes and events of world history, 100 photographs, 60 diagrams, and 200,000 words of explanatory text. Uniquely for such an atlas, the entire work is thoroughly cross-referenced, allowing the reader to move backwards and forwards in time or across the world from region to region, following themes or lines of inquiry both in the maps and the gazetteer.