ONE WORLD DIVISIBLE: A GLOBAL HISTORY SINCE 1945

You've got to give Cambridge fellow David Reynolds credit for such frankness, but it certainly didn't stop him from setting out to accomplish the impossible. Thankfully, Reynolds succeeds brilliantly, as becomes quickly clear from this marvelous, unbelievably readable 860-page survey, roughly bookended by the Berlin blockade and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The project is impossible, "of course," thanks to the subject's staggering size and complexity, but Reynolds takes this in stride, admits his limitations, and digs into a robust, good-spirited, and even-handed analysis, intimidating as a whole but approachable and engaging in its parts.