This fourth edition of text for senior secondary students has been revised and updated. Now covers the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the USSR, the Gulf war, civil wars in former Yugoslavia and Somalia, and violent confrontations in China and Southern Africa. Provides separate units on Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East into the 1990s, and includes a review of the role of the UN in world affairs. Updated maps, cartoons and photographs, essay and discussion topics are supplied, with indexes of personalities and abbreviations.