ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows how crucial developments since 1945 the nuclear revolution, the space race and the rise of global environmentalism have produced a politics of globality that draws upon an intimately linked repertoire of ideas, images and artifacts. It discusses an examination of current understandings of globality as a singular condition or as the end-state of globalization and suggests an alternative interpretation that stresses the multiple ways in which planet Earth has been imagined, realized and visualized or has achieved concrete material expression. Although planet Earth had been imagined as a unified spherical body long before the Apollo missions allowed us to actually set eye on it, post-1945 globality nonetheless stands out from earlier imageries in terms of three distinct qualities. Understanding these dimensions is essential for being able to grasp the various kinds of politics that have been invested in claims about globality.
