Perhaps the most gripping sections of the book cover the collapse of the European order. Alvear Acevedo provides a gripping account of World War I, the interwar period, the Great Depression, and the rise of totalitarianism (Fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism). His analysis of World War II focuses on the global scale of the conflict, moving beyond the Eurocentric view to include the Pacific theater and the implications for the Global South.