text: Paul Johnson has written a 1,000-page book about various and sundry aspects of the years 1815-1830, years in which he rightly claims to find the origins of many aspects of the world as we know it today.  Johnson's chosen foci are certainly broad: he ranges from events in politics and law to music, science, and even opium use.  While almost every page is loaded with fascinating morsels of information that will certainly come in handy when you want to impress people at your next social function, Johnson's roving eye and pen can be disconcerting: he tends to shift topics very quickly and without warning.  Also, while the book claims to be about "world society," Johnson spends the largest part of his time talking about British society -- but he's found plenty of ways to range geographically from the "western" United States (like Kentucky) to China and Singapore.  Throughout, his prose is generally crisp and pleasant to read.  
  
  Overall, Johnson has given us what might be the ultimate in bedtime reading: a vast book that one can pick up, open nearly at random, and learn something interesting about the past but which retains significance today
  