We're now to a point where we complain that it takes hours to get from one side of the globe, but contrast that with the initial wave of global settlement, which took thousands of years to reach almost every corner of the globe, or even the more recent European expansion, which took centuries to map out territory we now scan with satellites multiple times a day.
That reminds me of a book recommendation I left out of the list above:
(His later book Collapse is good too, albeit not designed to encourage optimism about the long term viability of the human species)