History of the Hour
Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders
Translated by Thomas Dunlap
463 pages
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70 halftones
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6 x 9
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© 1996
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
"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
Contents
List of Figures
1: Introduction
2: The Division of the Day and Time-Keeping in Antiquity
3: The Medieval Hours (Hora)
4: Medieval Horologia and the Development of the Wheeled Clock
5: From Prestige Object to Urban Accessory: the Diffusion of Public Clocks in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
6: Late Medieval Clockmakers
7: Clock Time Signal, Communal Bell, and Municipal Signal Systems
8: The Ordering of Time: The Introduction of Modern Hour-Reckoning
9: Work Time and Hourly Wage
10: Coordination and Acceleration: Time-Keeping and Transportation and Communications up to the Introduction of "World Time" Conventions
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
1: Introduction
2: The Division of the Day and Time-Keeping in Antiquity
3: The Medieval Hours (Hora)
4: Medieval Horologia and the Development of the Wheeled Clock
5: From Prestige Object to Urban Accessory: the Diffusion of Public Clocks in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
6: Late Medieval Clockmakers
7: Clock Time Signal, Communal Bell, and Municipal Signal Systems
8: The Ordering of Time: The Introduction of Modern Hour-Reckoning
9: Work Time and Hourly Wage
10: Coordination and Acceleration: Time-Keeping and Transportation and Communications up to the Introduction of "World Time" Conventions
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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