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The history of timekeeping has always involved choosing or converting between various ways of representing time, a phenomenon called time pluralism. The Unsettled Clock: The Persistence of Time Pluralism explores time pluralism by documenting historical cases and examining its persistence in present. Drawing examples from medieval York, the Habsburg empire of early modern Europe, Renaissance astronomy, legal time in the US and UK before time zones were adopted, and the persistence of time pluralism in current atomic time metrology, this analysis offers a political and historical look into how timekeeping has been shaped, challenged, and manipulated.
“The book is deeply researched, clearly narrated, and engaging throughout. The material is sometimes technical, but the author never fails to let readers know why the detail is important, and this will help novices navigate without undue trouble. • Carol Greenhouse, Princeton University
Kevin K. Birth is on the faculty at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He studies cultural concepts of time in relationship to cognition and technology. His publications cover a wide arrange of topics including chronobiology, globalization, comparative calendars, timekeeping in Roman Britain and the Middle Ages. His previous books are: Any Time is Trinidad Time (1999); Bacchanalian Sentiments (2008); Objects of Time (2012); and Time Blind (2018).
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: What Is Time Pluralism?
Chapter 1. Producing Public Timekeeping and Time Pluralism
Chapter 2. A Bell for Every Market: Time Pluralism in Late Medieval York
Chapter 3. Cosmopolitan Times: Time Pluralism Habsburg Horology
Chapter 4. Time Pluralism and Scientists’ Choices
Chapter 5. Humbuggery and Time Pluralism: Nineteenth-Century Time Gambits
Chapter 6. Time Pluralism and Current Timescales
Chapter 7. Using Atoms versus Earth’s Rotation
Chapter 8. Time Pluralism and the Leap Second Problem
Chapter 9. Unsettling the Clock
Glossary
Bibliography
Index