ABSTRACT
Globalization is a word that now seems on the lips of every politician, commentator or author. It describes the increasing global spatial flows, interconnections and interdependence of people, information, goods, organizations and states that are connecting people and places at a world scale, and which are creating changes in the structures and organizations of society and places. In many ways it is unfortunate that the current use of the term globalization is almost exclusively applied to recent human trends. Geographers, of course, have always been very much aware that there are many physical processes that operate on a global scale or have global effects. Different modes of communication, whether information flows or physical mobility and goods transfer, have different speeds, capacities and constraints, which lead to rather different effects on the overall system of interaction.
