ABSTRACT
During the Apollo space flights, it was reported that one of the astronauts, looking back to Earth, expressed amazement that he could see no boundaries. This new view of our world as the “blue planet” contradicted the taken-for-granted, state-centric Ptolemaic model or image of world-space that most modern people carry around in their heads: a world of grids, graticule, and territorial boundaries. As a further jolt to the arrogance of modernity, it was soon accepted as a truism that the only “man-made” artifact visible from space was the ancient Great Wall of China. Interestingly, however, the Great Wall is not the only visible feature: at night, modern settlements are clearly visible as pin-pricks of electric light on a black canvas. The globality of modern society is clear for all to see in the photo prints, communicated back to Earth, of lights delimiting a global pattern of cities, consisting of a broad swath girdling the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere plus many oases of light elsewhere.
