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06862_Field_TCUM T427.txt
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1996-04-10
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an age that has so much power that the all-destructive use of
it appears meaningless, even to the dim and skew of wit.
Historians see the forms of the great cities in the ancient
world as manifesting all facets of human personality.
Institutions, architectural and administrative, as extensions of
our physical beings necessarily tend toward world-wide
similarities. The central nervous system of the city was the
citadel which included the great temple and palace of the king,
invested with the dimensions and iconography of power and
prestige. The extent to which this central core could extend its
power safely depended on its power of acting at a distance.
Not until the alphabet appeared, together with papyrus, could
the citadel extend itself very far in space. (See the chapter on
Roads and Paper Routes.) The ancient city, however, could
appear as quickly as specialist man could separate his inner