By squeezing seven centuries and five continents between two covers, the book tracks the transition from one world order to the next-from the Iberian, British, American, and Chinese-explaining how the quest for a profitable form of energy led to the persistence of slavery for 400 years and how the discovery of fossil fuels simultaneously ended slavery and started carbon emissions that now threaten the current world order.

For a younger generation born at the start of this century, the book explains how climate change and changing world orders will shape their opportunities during the decades that will serve as the signposts of their lives-2030, 2050, 2070, and 2100.

For activists concerned about issues of race and social justice, the book explains the rise of the African slave trade as the critical element in the extraordinary profitability and persistence of the colonial sugar plantation, making coerced, captive labor a central feature of modern capitalism for over four centuries.