This exhaustive reference allows the user quickly to determine what happened in or to each country and when - changes of names, political systems, rulers, and so on. The term "state" is loosely defined to embrace any area of land with recognized borders and evidence of a continuing governmental structure.

This is a bigger (over 11,000 entries), updated (through late fall 1998) edition of the 1989 original ("Stewarts organization and his index -make his work indispensable"--Library Journal; "the most complete record to date...