In the first issue of 2015 we devoted the whole of the NBC to a singlepublication, Springer's massive Encyclopedia of globalarchaeology, edited by Claire Smith. The appearance of anotherblockbusting set of volumes of global remit, authored by a cast of prominentscholars, demands similar attention. The three-volume Cambridge worldprehistory, however, adopts a rather different format to theEncyclopedia and this has encouraged us to seek somespecialist insight. This issue's NBC therefore takes the form ofthree parallel reviews—one dedicated to each regionalvolume—by reviewers invited on the basis of their regionalexpertise.