"History's greatest tour guide--Ian Mortimer--takes us on an eye-opening and expansive journey through the last millennium of human innovation"--Front jacket flap. "We are an astonishing species. Over the past millennium of plagues and exploration, revolution and scientific discovery, women's rights and technological advances, human society has changed beyond recognition. ln Millennium, bestselling historian Ian Mortimer takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the last ten centuries of Western history. It is a journey into a past vividly brought to life--and bursting with ideas--that pits one century against another in his quest to measure which century saw the greatest change. We journey from a time when there was a fair chance of your village being burned to the ground by invaders--and dried human dung was a recommended cure for cancer--to a world in which explorers sailed into the unknown and civilizations came into conflict with each other on an epic scale. Here is a story of brilliant scientists, fearless adventurers, cold-hearted entrepreneurs, and strong-minded women--a story of discovery, invention, revolution, and cataclysmic shifts in perspective. Millennium is a journey into the past like no other. Our understanding of human development will never be the same again."--Jacket flap.