Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
make the messy feudal geographies resemble the idealized Cartesian spaces
of modernity by revolutionizing circulation space and the means of trans-
portation. As it had for eons, water transport was still largely preferably to
land: in the seventeenth century, the cost of sea transport was only 1/15 to
1/20 of that overland (Vance 1990:429). Regions in which roads were non-
existent or poorly developed, such as Russia, relied extensively on river navi-
gation, and places without access to rivers were marginalized in the extreme.
Even access to the roads, such as they were, did little to ensure regular deliver-
ies of goods: land transportation was not only slow, but su
ered a maximum
range set by the ability of horses, oxen, mules, and donkeys to carry
ff
nite
loads of fodder, which they consumed within roughly 150 kilometers. Such
conditions inhibited the circulation of goods, capital, and information, and
presented intolerable conditions to the newly ascendant bourgeoisie. Mercan-
tilist state policies, which protected producers from foreign competition,
simultaneously sought the freest possible internal circulation. Consequently,
in due order the new nation-states of early modern Europe set about revo-
lutionizing the transportation and communications systems within their
borders in what Virilio (1986) calls a “dromocratic” revolution. Similarly,
Vance (1986) identi
fi
es a “transportation revolution” in the sixteenth century
that centered on better wagons and coaches, improved roads, more reliable
bridges, and canals.
The growth of canal systems attempted to recreate the marine transport
environment on land. Canals lowered the transport costs of bulky goods,
initiating a cost-space compression that was central to the early development
of many nation-states. Late medieval cities often relied upon canal systems to
transport food and supplies, such as Milan's Naviglio Grande, which was
started in the late twelfth century by Cistercian monks and completed in
1458, or the Stecknitz Canal in Northern Germany, built in 1391-98. It was
France, however, which
fi
fi
first made canals a centerpiece of national uni
fi
cation
e
orts, canalizing rivers to encourage interprovincial trade in agricultural
goods (Vance 1990). Henry IV ordered the construction of the
ff
first canal in
France around 1600, the Canal de Briare which united the Loire valley and
the Paris Basin. Louis XIV authorized the Canal des Deux Mers (also called
the Canal Royal), which in 1681 connected Toulouse to the port of Sète, 149
miles away, to expedite tra
fi
c between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
These e
orts were supplemented by a variety of other canals well into the
nineteenth century, some of which are still in use today, forming an intercon-
nected network of watersheds that steadily integrated French national space.
The Dutch too, through the
trekvaart
system, created a canal system, albeit
more for passenger use than agricultural tra
ff
c. The British canals, built by
private interests in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, similarly played
a pivotal role in integrating local regions into a national space that made
them indispensable to the Industrial Revolution (Figure 3.2). In the U.S., too,
canals enjoyed a brief period of hegemony in the early nineteenth century
(about which more later). In each case, canals helped to undermine local
monopolies, facilitate regional specialization, reduce transport costs, and
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