The new book by Dmitry Travin and Otar Margania is a story about government reforms through the biographies of the people who carried them out. The short stories simply and clearly tell how and why the world has changed. The book covers a huge period of time from the era of Queen Elizabeth of England to the Russian reformers of the late 20th century. Geographically, the book represents the whole world: all the world's significant reformers from Europe, Asia and America are represented in it. And most importantly, the authors’ attention is paid not only to the practices of state reform, but also to great scientists, without whose works it is difficult to imagine modernization.