" This admittedly simplified description of society as an assemblage of assemblages should serve as a reminder of how misleading it is to view human history as comprising a single temporal flow. Indeed, given that even at the largest scales (territorial states, world-economies) we never reach a point at which we may coherently speak of ‘society as a whole’, the very term ‘society’ should be regarded as a convenient expression lacking a referent. "

― Manuel DeLanda , Assemblage Theory