Hobsbawm calls the period from the start of World War I to the fall of the Soviet Union "the short twentieth century". This is to follow on "the long 19th century", the period from the start of the French Revolution in 1789 to the start of World War I in 1914. The Age of Extremes is the last in his series of books that include ("", "", ""). In the United States, the book was published with the subtitle "A History of the World, 1914–1991".