Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with the period of the so-called belle Époque, approximately from 1880 to the outbreak of the First World War. This was a period of enormous, exhilarating, disturbing change that was a response in part to the emergence of new communications technologies and information infrastructures. One of the features of the period of the belle Époque was the speed, development and global spread of communications infrastructures. It was the period of a widespread development of interest in international arbitration as the basis for settling disputes between nations to ensure the maintenance of peace. This led in 1889 to what became grand annual Universal Peace Congresses in the different cities of Europe, the United Kingdom and the USA.