We are an astonishing species. Over the past millennium of plagues and exploration, revolution and scientific discovery, womans rights and technological advances, human society has changed beyond recognition.

Sweeping through the last thousand years of human development,Human Raceis a treasure chest of the lunar leaps and lightbulb moments that, for better or worse, have sent humanity swerving down a path that no one could ever have predicted.

Butwhich of the last ten centuries saw the greatest changes in human history?

Historys greatest tour guide, Ian Mortimer, knows what answer he would give. But whats yours?

Dr Ian Mortimer is theSunday Timesbestselling author ofTheTime Travellers Guide to Medieval EnglandandThe Time Travellers Guide to Elizabethan England, as well as four critically acclaimed medieval biographies, and numerous scholarly articles on subjects ranging in date from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1998. His work on the social history of medicine won the Alexander Prize (2004) and was published by the Royal Historical Society in 2009. He lives with his wife and three children in Moretonhampstead, on the edge of Dartmoor.