ABSTRACT
In this chapter I want to suggest that a second element of the modern geopolitical imagination has involved translating time into space. In other words, the ‘blocks’ of space identified in Chapter 1 have been understood in terms of the essential attributes of different time periods relative to the idealized historical experience of one of the blocks: the West. Hence, territories are named as ‘primitive’ vs. ‘advanced’ or ‘backward’ vs. ‘modern’ in relation to an idealized version of European experience.
