ABSTRACT
Changes in transport transformed people’s perspectives during the twentieth century. Journey times to overseas destinations were dramatically reduced by the development of airliners. North America, more than a five-day journey from Britain in 1900, could be reached within seven hours in 1999, or in half that time, though at great expense, by Concorde. Australia, six weeks away by sea in the first decade of the century, could be reached in about twenty-four hours in the 1990s. Within Britain, the reduction in city-to-city journey times was less dramatic, but motorways brought about a substantial reduction in journey times, while train services – of a frequency unimagined in 1900 – steadily changed people’s social horizons from the 1920s onwards. The object of this chapter is to define the crucial moments of change in various forms of transport, and to highlight the archaeological record of transport in the twentieth century.
