One step from Earth [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION The Matter TransmitterThe history of transportation is tlie liistory of mankind. Tills may sound like too broad a statement, but it is certainly more accurate than the accepted history as measured by wars, rulers, and politics.In the beginning there was walking, and mankind walked around the world. On foot, generation after generation, homo sapiens spread out from his homeland, usually considered to be in central Africa, and crossed the land bridges to the other continents. Later, after sailing craft had been perfected, isolated places like the Pacific islands were settledbut the foot came first. Nor was itnor is itan inferior form of transportation by any test. The Roman roads were used by chariots and carts, but were built primarily to enable the foot soldiers to reach their objectives quickly and easily, sometimes at the other end of the continent.The parallels can be easily drawn. When only the tiny minority traveled, society was fixed at a simple agrarian level. The life of the seventeenth-century European peasant differed very little from the life of the eleventh-century European peasant. Stuck in the mud. Destined to be born and to live and die in the same place.But not the seafarers. As soon as men could build ships to sail long distancesthey did. The Myceneans