Measuring Time, Making HistoryFirst volume of the Natalie Zemon Davis Annual Lecture Series at Central European University, this small but rich book contains three lectures delivered at CEU. Explores some of the ways in which time matters or should matter to historians. Like everyone else, historians assume that time exists, yet despite its obvious importance to historical writing--what is history but the account of how things change over time?--writers of history do not often inquire into the meaning of time itself. Hunt asks a series of related questions about time in history. Why is time now again on the agenda, for historians and more generally in Western culture? How did Western Christian culture develop its distinctive way of measuring time (BC/AD or BCE/CE) and how does it influence our notion of history? What is the role of modernity--our most contentious temporal category--in the historical discipline? Is modernity an experience of temporal ty or an ideological construction? Are modernity, the discipline of history, and even the notion of history itself a western, and therefore imperialist, imposition? Should we, can we, move beyond the modern within the historical discipline? |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Académie française Africa ancient Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot Anthropology argued Ashis Nandy BCE/CE becomes Bossuet Cambridge Chakrabarty Chicago Christian chronology civilization clock critics culture dating system deep history Denis Petau Dipesh Chakrabarty discipline eighteenth century Encyclopédie English Enlightenment Essay Europe evolutionary example experience French Revolution future global Gregorian calendar Guha Hegel historians History and Theory history writing homogeneous human influence influential innovation invention Joseph Priestley Joseph Scaliger Julian Period Koselleck l'histoire Louis de Bonald medieval memory Middle Ages Millar modern time schema Modernity and History Nandy narrative Natalie Zemon Davis nations natural Newton nineteenth century non-teleological Paris past political present Priestley progress quote Ricoeur Scaliger Scheuerman Scottish philosophers secular sense seventeenth Smail social acceleration Social Theory societies stages Subrahmanyam Tagore teenth teleology teleology of modernity telos temporal tion titles tory Turgot universal history University Press Voltaire Western world history world standard