Presenting a panoramic, world-ranging view of history, this Guide identifies theatre's most important moments of widespread change from 50,000 BCE to modernity, across Eurasia, Africa, the Americas, and Australasia. It explains why those moments came about and examines how they found expression in distinctive theatre practices. Its global perspective complements more localized perspectives and foregrounds the importance of sometimes trivialized and overlooked traditions. The Guide provides students, scholars, and all who are interested in theatre with a fresh, lively, and compelling understanding of world theatre history.