BOOKS. . . "AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF HUMANITY"

Oxford historian Theodore Zeldin argues that even after 7,000 years or so of human civilization, we have just begun to exist. Each chapter starts with a capsule biography of people who embody contemporary concerns. Most of them are women from France, which Zeldin describes as his "laboratory."TIME critic John Elsonsays the book (HarperCollins; 488 pages; $25) "offers a quirky but intellectually dazzling view of human history as a potential guide to a glorious future."