The Timetables of History: A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events

The kind of master-reference that was once very luxurious and impressive--a triumph, says Arthur Schlesinger (!) on the back cover--but has been in some ways well and truly superseded by the internet. You don't need this to look up dates anymore, but there is absolutely still some fascination in the cascade of names, events, facts, across the page--a synaesthetic smorgasbord. The best way to read this, then, is to start at the start and flip pages slowly, scanning the page but not too thoroughly, magpieing. The ancient world had a lot more "history and politics" than any of the other categories--just this sort of aggregate reminder about how much of the past is lost, and how mixed up humans can be about what's important for the ages. show more The change to individual year numbering at the start of the middle ages, 500 CE, and the total lack of much for most of the first 500 years or so--a reminder that you can push back to a certain degree against the "Dark Ages" cliche, stress continuities with Rome and active and vital cultural practices, but it was still a shitty and muddy and squalid time with a whole lot less going on than the before it or after it--and then the further observation that this is Eurocentric in a way that would not have been possible even, oh, ten years later (my edition is from the early '90s I believe). The different ways we evaluate the arts--literature with a canon that shifts in the weirdest ways but a constant sense of itself as high art; music as a classical preserve (and in terms of what we know, the youngest of the arts) with pop singers only grudgingly and comically admitted ("1968: Aretha Franklin ("soul" music) and Jimi Hendrix (hard rock music) joust for popularity"). Visual art as just dying out, dude--great works outnumbered basically every year past 1950 by deaths of those who produced great works in an earlier age. (Why haven't we canonized our computer graphics guys, our design men, our animators?) 1650: The first coffee house opens in London; and, tea is first drunk in the British Isles. There is some fun here. show less

I have really enjoyed browsing through this book, often while eating or waiting for something to finish. I can dip in almost anywhere and learn plenty. My knowledge of the history of various disciplines (politics, art, music, religion, science, etc.) has tended to be rather "siloed," so it's great to be able to look at the things that were happening in various disciplines at the same time. What was happening in music while Shakespeare was writing his plays? What unexpected things were going on in popular culture during the Spanish Inquisition? What technological innovations took place while Mozart was writing music? Seeing the timing of events in different disciplines leads me to speculate about how they might have been related or show more influenced each other. Fascinating overview, which has inspired me to look for more details in other sources. show less

According to the publisher, this work was "a spectacular success" (!) when it was produced by Werner Stein in 1946 as Kulturfahrplan. The translation was made possible largely by the lawyer-musician-linguist, Bernard Grun. Daniel J. Boorstin, the lawyer-librarian, writes a helpful Preface, including the note that "On every page of this book, then , we see clues to how polychromatic and how iridescent is the experience of any age."
The data is presented as an x/y "time/event" table, where x is the date and it progresses, while y is a repeating spread of columns A through G across the gutter of the open face, representing events in the following categories:
A. History, Politics;
B. Literature, Theatre;
C. Religion, Philosophy, Learning;
show more D. Visual Arts;
E. Music;
F. Science, Technology, Growth;
G. Daily Life.
The earliest dated event is -4241, and the last is 1978. The Index is detailed.
This work reflects Catholic and "European" geographic-race prejudices (no effort to include Ancient Africa, or Asia, musical instruments, etc.) Cultural contributions of even prominent and well-known Jews and Arabs are minimal. The more recently-discovered Scythians, Bantu Great Zimbabwe, black Pharoahs of Abydos, Mohenjo Daro, Basque navigation, micronesian Nan Madol, Austronesians, the Ainu who rewrote the history of Japan and Korea, and even the Sanxingdui that rewrote the history of China, are omitted. The Foreword by Daniel Boorstin acknowledges global gaps: "Western civilization alone offers an exhausting enterprise of chronology." In fact, however, a kind of bubble of racism had impeded the interest of scholars. Only now is the true science of history beginning to enable us to see what human beings are really able to achieve.
Brilliant and comprehensive in terms of Europe's contemporary weltanschaung with plenty of schadenfreude. show less

The early years of human history seem to have less information than might be available, particularly spotty in Asian history and pretty much nothing about Africa south of the Sahara. Still, an interesting browse and a good place to see what was happening in a given year.

A marvelous idea for a history reference, this book tracks the development of man through recorded history in seven categories: History and Politics, Literature & the Theater, Religion and Philosophy, Visual Arts, Music, Science and Technology, and Daily Life. A fascinating book to leaf through, and a useful reference.

Really great source for visualizing the flow of life for each documented year in history--columns cover history/politics, literature/theatre/religion/philosophy/learning, visual arts, music, science/technology/growth, and daily life. Brief entries do not allow for comprehensive coverage, but great for an overiew and general feel for the time period. A highly valuable resource.

Just incredible fun! Page after page of information arranged in a way that lets you see how stuff influenced other stuff.