means of paper messages and road transport. Such speedup 
means much more control at much greater distances. 
Historically, it meant the formation of the Roman Empire and 
the disruption of the previous city-states of the Greek world. 
Before the use of papyrus and alphabet created the incentives 
for building fast, hard-surface roads, the walled town and the 
city-state were natural forms that could endure.

     Village and city-state essentially are forms that include all 
human needs and functions. With greater speed and, therefore, 
greater military control at a distance, the city-state collapsed. 
Once inclusive and self-contained, its needs and functions were 
extended in the specialist activities of an empire. Speed-up 
tends to separate functions, both commercial and political, and 
acceleration beyond a point in any system becomes disruption 
and breakdown. So when Arnold Toynbee turns, in A Study of