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In three decades, from 1914 to 1945, the European great powers ceased to dominate the globe. In their place, the United States, primarily a regional power in 1914, became a "super power" along with the half-Asian USSR. What had happened in this short period to work such a dramatic change? This work examines the interconnection of events on different continents, just as world leaders were forced to do. The book also acknowledges the importance of imperial and economic circumstances in framing the policies of states towards one another. In 1941, few Westerners could have forseen how the world would be when World War II ended. The war accelerated the final stages in the transition, but the ebbing of European ascendancy had begun long before, and often far away from Europe itself.