Opening remarks on ephemeral nature of nomad-empires, citing Al-Ghazali. Examples such as the Avars inadvertently teaching their formerly passive Slav subjects how to fight, sowing their own overthrow/assimilation. Nomad-origin Mongol & Parthian states exceptional in longevity. 
The uniting narrative of what would become Likud. 
Author makes clear from the start that 🇦🇺 is not some poor exploited US colony: its leaders are enthusiastic participants in the 🇺🇸 Empire. 
Furthest Roman expedition into the Atlas. Its leader, G.Suetonius Paulinus, later defeated Boudica's revolt in Britain. 
Berezovsky's unstoppable personal drive & his thoughts on the *reality* of how the American government is run. 
The biggest movement for 🇵🇱 independence, the National Democrats, had very different ideas from Piłsudski's faction that won out after WW1.
Pre-colonial culturo-political divisions of the Yoruba. Like the Greeks or Sumerians, they were divide into warring city-states, but acknowledged their unity in language and religion.
Author opens with the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, contends SA government very narrowly missed a violent overthrow, just as the Tsarist Russia barely dodged the abortive 1905 Revolution. 
Greek authors had acknowledged from earliest times there had been on their lands an earlier Civilisation than their own, which they had since taken over. But beyond their existence, nothing was known of these "Pelasgians" or "Trojans".
There are very few good sources on Anatolian between the Hittite civilisation's collapse & Persian conquest. 
Authors state urgency of their mission, having scant remaining time to describe Aboriginal social organisation & beliefs, already rapidly going extinct at the time of writing. Book mostly focuses on the Arunda (Arendte, spellings vary) still one of the most numerous groups today. 
Though we can only guess at the true number, roughly between 80-95% of all Greco-Roman literature has been lost. 
Tasmania is a cool temperate, mountainous & windyswept island, roughly the size of a united Ireland.
A key point to understanding this book: 
Darius III (hence just Darius) won the throne of the world's largest yet-known Empire as a usurper, from fairly obscure origins. 
With a lack of any written records, the process of state formation in the Nigeria region remains murky. 
A key to understanding Gorbachev, ignored by both Western & Russian historiography: "He was the last true Leninist believer". 
Background up the the 18th Century. 
The disaster at Manzikert was preceded by decades of aristocratic Greek infighting & administrative drift, but most crucially the de-facto disbanding (to become tax farmers) of the Byzantine reservist core - the "Themes".
Namely his explanation for Byzantium's sudden & incredibly steep decline. Over a mere century it went from Basil II's tightly-run & unified realm, ringed by either vassals or cringing & defeated enemies, to one on the verge of collapse, riddled by corruption & political anarchy. 
Indonesia remains near-invisible globally as a country that's just competent enough to have stable government & avoid wars, but far too poor to project power/culture abroad. However, as E. Asian birthrates collapse & demand labour, this will change. 
