This fourth volume of Michael Mann's analytical history of social power covers the period from 1945 to the present.

Michael Mann is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of Power in the 21st Century: Conversations with John Hall (2011), Incoherent Empire (2003) and Fascists (Cambridge University Press, 2004). His book The Dark Side of Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2004) was awarded the Barrington Moore Award of the American Sociological Association for the best book in comparative and historical sociology in 2006.

1. Globalizations; 2. The post-war global order; 3. America in war and Cold War: class struggles; 4. Civil rights and identity struggles in the United States; 5. American empire during the Cold War, 1945-80; 6. Neoliberalism, rise and faltering, 1970-2000; 7. The fall of the Soviet alternative; 8. The Maoist alternative reformed; 9. A theory of revolution; 10. American empire at the turn of the twenty-first century; 11. Global crisis: the great neoliberal recession; 12. Global crisis: climate change; 13. Conclusion.