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railroads and geography  

Definition

  • One of the central technologies of the Industrial Revolution, and perhaps the most important child of the steam engine, was the railroad, which, along with steamships, played a central role in giving birth to radically new geographies of social and economic life. Railroads were central to the rise of modern capitalism and the opening up of continental interiors through rapid, cheap, and dependable transportation and were thus the most explicit symbol of the vast wave of time-space compression unleashed throughout the 19th century. [Source: Encyclopedia of Geography; Railroads and Geography]

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https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/railroads_and_geography

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