Today's political minds assure us that the more connected societies are the less danger they pose to global stability-but is this a new idea or one that is as old as history itself? Trade networks that began as far back as human prehistory were responsible for exchanges of ideas as well as goods and the ripple effects of these networks were the expansionist compulsions of historical States and empires. These papers tell us that the civilizations of the ancient past may have had more in common with modern global enterprises than was ever before imagined. Two concepts that have great immediacy and have now become the current watchwords for the media as well as for academia, globalization and long-term historical processes, are brought together in this interdisciplinary volume of papers based upon Manuel Castells' massive work The Network Society. Oystein S. LaBianca is Professor of Anthropology and Senior Director, International Development Program, at Andrews University, Michigan. Sandra Arnold Scham is Lecturer and Research Development Specialist, Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland and Coordinator, Negev Bedouin Identity Project, Howard University.