<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/bfade263-9b94-4c7f-bd28-242fb7135a9a/1C355BEE-5796-4D1C-959C-7685A99597B3/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,637830,00.html" href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,637830,00.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.spiegel.de</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,637830,00.html"> First let us take a step back and see how the global landscape has already come to resemble a crucial period of European history, namely the Middle Ages. It was a long and uncertain period, and thus an ideal metaphor for our times. It was an age of plagues and progress, commercial revolutions, expanding empires, crusades, city-states, merchants, and universities. The new middle ages -- synonymous with our postmodern globalization age -- have already begun. <P>Particularly the city-state, the most prominent medieval political unit, will continue its resurrection. Today's list of "global cities" -- New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Sao Paulo, London, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo -- will also include Alexandria, Karachi, Istanbul, and others. Then as now, city-states are commercial hubs all but divorced from their national anchor</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/1C355BEE-5796-4D1C-959C-7685A99597B3/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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