Peter Taylor is Professor of Geography and Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at Loughborough University. He was the editor of Political Geography (1982-1998) and an editor of Review of International Political Economy (1992-1997). His previous books include The Way the Modern World Works: World Hegemony to World Impasse (1996) and Modernities: A Geohistorical Perspective (Polity, 1999).