Volume 46 Issue 11 November 1996

Joachim Radkau reviews the power revolutions of steam, electricity and oil - harbingers of dramatic change in technology and social expectations.

Michael Bonavia on the long-delayed link between Britain and the Continent.

Speed and utopias – Vladimir Pankov on the brilliant novelties and blind alleys of the Futurists

Igor Slepnev on the fin de siecle project that yoked together the Russias of Europe and Asia.

Asa Briggs comments on the historical division of time, and whether such landmarks as centuries and millennia hold any real meaning.

Theo Barker on how 150 years of innovations in global movement have transformed what we eat, think and wear

From pigeon post to the Internet - Dagmar Lorenz on how the communications revolution has produced the global village.

Andrea Wolter-Abele looks at how machines and industrial society provoked new concepts of creativity.

Rudolf Kippenhahn on how astronomy has altered our vision of the universe - from 10th-century Cairo to the Big Bang.