While historians rarely identify these sea changes when they are living through them, the signs are unmistakable that we are in the midst of a new revolution at least as dramatic and far reaching as that which occurred in what the great historian Paul Johnson describes as the birth of the modern world society in the beginning of the 19th century.

Today the proliferation of information technology ranging from the telephone and fax machine to fiber optic cables has flooded the world with data and information moving at near the speed of light to all corners of the world.

It is a well established principle that a change of degree--if carried far enough-- may eventually become a difference in kind. In biology this is how new species are created and old ones die out. Speed is what transforms a harmless lump of lead into a deadly rifle bullet. This explosion of information and the speed at which it can be transmitted has created a situation which is different in kind and not just in degree from any former age.

For thousands of years news could travel only as fast as a horse could run or a ship could sail. Military power was similarly impeded. Great national leaders were almost anonymous to all but those who had seen them in person. Today the minicam is omnipresent, but in the late 18th century there were no photographs of Washington or Jefferson, and the tsar of Russia traveled unrecognized throughout Europe. The ability of the sovereign to keep information secret and thus a tight grip on power began to erode with the invention of the paved road, the optical telegraph, and the newspaper.