History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders - Softcover

Dohrn-van Rossum, Gerhard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226155110 ISBN 13: 9780226155111

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1998

Synopsis

In this sweeping study of the organization of time, Dohrn-van Rossum offers fresh insight into the history of the mechanical clock and its influence on European society from the late Middle Ages to the industrial revolution. Detailing the clock's effects on social activity, he presents a vivid picture of a society regulated by the precise measurement of identical hours.

"In tracing the evolution of time consciousness with scholarship and skill . . . Dohrn-van Rossum evokes the many ways that the small moments of life have come to be reckoned with the passage of time."—Dava Sobel, Civilization

"Dohrn-van Rossum paints a highly nuanced picture of time's conquest of modern life."—Steven Lagerfeld, Wilson Quarterly

"This book is definitive in showing the clock's pervasive influence over European society."—Virginia Quarterly Review

"[A] delightful, excellently translated history."—Choice

"Dohrn-van Rossum has produced a persuasive and brilliantly documented new understanding of how modern time-consciousness arose."—Owen Gingerich, Nature

About this title

About the Author:

Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum teaches medieval and early modern history at the University of Bielefeld and has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0226155110
• ISBN 13: 9780226155111
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 463