As two previous books of the history series by the same author, this one is a great overview of the period from different countries perspective. A couple of places raised some concerns though - the quote attributed to Machiavelli that doesn't belong to him, and statement that Napoleon wrote comments to Machiavelli's "The Prince", which is not exactly right. However it is a good bok to start getting into more detail if necessary and gives a good starting point in understanding of historical processes.