This article is an inquiry into the ties - which the author treats as invisible - that help bind humans in a society. Three forms of the modern Western world can usefully be discerned: patronage, connections and networks. Though retaining continuity, they have succeeded one another in impact and importance. The first mainly characterizes the period of the 16th to 18th centuries; the second, the 19th century, and especially England as it moved from an aristocratic to a bourgeois society; and (...) the third, the late 20th century, with its computer revolution. In general, the direction of change has been from hierarchy to greater equality. Network society, however, is still in its incipient phase, and a final verdict is not yet possible. All three of the types of ties ideally shed light on the societies that they have helped to hold together. (shrink)