Leofranc Holford-Strevens

I started reading this book thinking this was a historical exploration of the philosophical conceptions of time. Maybe I’m not the only one to fall for this, for, as the author himself acknowledges in the introduction, the title may be a bit of a misnomer. Even so, I was pleasantly surprised by the the content of this work. For this is a history of the ways people kept track of time. In this sense, yes, this is a history of time, but time in a weaker sense.

So what is this book actually show more about? This is an exploration of how the different calendars were divised, its lengths, its relations and justifications within a particular culture, and how some of these notions, ideas, calculations and, even, mistakes, are still influencing our own ways of keeping track of time.

So, what do I keep from this? Well, to be honest, just the loose impression that most peoples (if not all) in their need to keep track of time, end up being trapped within the cultural necessity of trying to make the universe conform to the calendar. I know, sounds weird. But we are still doing it. For we rise when the clock ticks, and not when the Sun rises. This, although not explicitly stated in the book, it’s something that permeates the whole message; at least when you start considering that all calendars are filled with incongruencies shaped by cultures offsetting the counting with the universal measure of Nature.

Maybe you’ll like to know why your days are called the way they are. Maybe you just like to know some random facts about calendars, Easter days, and why do we call it Summer. Maybe you’re just glad do know how cutely random these defining features of our civilization truly are. In any case, you’ll find something of interest worth of your time. show less

Really enjoyed the first few chapters, about the origins of days and weeks, but once we got into years and dating under competing calendars my eyes just glazed over….

A good reference if you need to understand how humans have tracked time over the centuries and across cultures. Holford-Strevens makes the material pretty readable, but it still gets pretty dry as you read through all the complications involved in keeping each time system 'on track' as the earth wobbles and rotates and orbits. A Short History of Time will leave you with a good appreciation for the complexity of timekeeping and the dangers of using references to points in time in literature show more and ancient manuscripts.

Os. show less

A fascinating and erudite book about the ways people measure time. A brilliant book that, unfortunately for me, describes in words concepts that I would understand better with numbers, graphs, formulas, diagrams, flow charts and mind maps. However if I really wanted to I could , no doubt, find mathematical/ visual descriptions from the bibliography and a bit of googling. I might well do that sometime as I am a bit frustrated with almost but not quite getting such a fascinating aspect of the show more human condition.
Inspiring show less