like the nesting russian dolls, each chaper of this book is separate but linked to the whole. i've never read such a creative piece - using different countries and time periods (even turning futuristic/sci-fi-sh at times) and using different writing styles that would be compatible to the time period - this author manages to pull all these stand-alone stories into a cohesive narrative. his recurring themes are the constant braying that society as we know it will be extinct within this century (whether it's the 18th or the 22nd), the repeated act of enslaving another nation/race, and the contradictory nature of our beliefs to our actions: the belief that we are powerless to change the future while we behave like our actions really can yield a change...

my favorite part(s) was how we got to revisit the chapters (which ended - each - with a great sense of doom) to have each of them come to a satisfying conclusion.