The History of Time: A Very Short Introduction Oxford university press

Why do we measure time in the way that we do? Why is a week seven days long? At what point did minutes and seconds come into being? Why are some calendars lunar and some solar? The organization of time into hours, days, months, and years seems immutable and universal, but is actually far more artificial than most people realize. The French Revolution resulted in a restructuring of the French calendar, and the Soviet Union experimented with five- and six-day weeks. Leofranc Holford-Strevens explores the history of the measurement of time using a range of fascinating examples, from Ancient Rome and Julius Caesar's imposition of the Leap Year to the 1920s' project for a fixed Easter. Формат: 11 см х 17,5 см.