Task of glocality study : Geddes and Ward/Dubos

“Think Globally, Act Locally” is now a very popular phrase. Wikipedia on the internet tells that the original form of it :“Think Global, Act Local” has been attributed to Scots town planner and social activist Patrick Geddes. Walter Stephen, who is the Chairman of the Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust, edited an anthology Think Global, Act Local (2004) and says that Geddes coined the mantra in his Cities in Evolution (1915). But the word “global” does not appear in the book. Geddes insisted both needs of regional survey in town planning and careful application of comprehensive knowledge. His message was “Think Trans-local, Act Local.”On the other hand, “spaceship earth” and “global village” are the key concepts of Only One Earth (1972) by Barbara Ward and René Dubos. Dubos is a French-born American microbiologist and environmentalist, and is also listed as one of the candidates of the first prophet of “Think Global, Act Local” in the environmental context. Their book ardently indicates the need of the global thinking, though, the authors contrasted it against the national interests. The contention of the book was “Think Global, Act Transnational.” Historical survey of the environmentalism by John McCormick tells us that the rise of the global thinking goes back to Man and Nature (1864) by American diplomat and philologist George Perkins Marsh. Geddes admired the book as it “will long remain a classic.” OED registers that the first use of “global” in 1676 and that of “local” in 1485. The concept of “glocality” must be translatable to other languages, and the notion of it may go back to the rise of humanity. The true task of glocality study lies in the search of humanity in a glocal notion to comprehend it in a global context.