Human Geography at the End of Time? Some Thoughts on the Notion of Time—Space Compression

Abstract

In this paper I look at the suggestion that time-space compression is changing our experience of time and space. In particular, the extent to which it is seen as raising the importance of a spatial perspective to our understanding of society is contrasted with how some writers have depicted it as rupturing our relationship with the past and its carryover of meaning. For some, this temporal disjuncture is seen as marking the end of History and as reducing our experience of time to a series of ‘perpetual presents’ . These a historical ideas are challenged and a case presented for maintaining an inclusive treatment of what is past, or inertial, within society.