Capitalism and the World System

Abstract

In the light of the ideas I have set out in earlier pages, it should not appear odd to move directly from the intimacies of domestic life to developments that span the globe. Nothing is more characteristic of our era than the connections between the conduct of our day-to-day lives, specific to time and place, and events in far-flung regions. It is difficult for us, living in a world of more or less instantaneous electronic communication via telephone, radio, and television, and extremely rapid travel by road, rail, and air, to understand the slow pace of communication and travel in previous centuries. In common with so many of the phenomena analysed in this book, this conquest of time and space dates from only the mid-eighteenth century. In the early period of the eighteenth century in Europe, transportation — simultaneously the only means of communication — was almost as slow as it had always been in prior phases of world history, even in empires having developed road systems. Napoleon took almost as long as Caesar had done to get from Rome to Paris. Communication became separated from transportation only with the first successful utilisation of Morse’s electromagnetic telegraph between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., in 1844.