Marking Time: The Epic Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar - Softcover

Steel, Duncan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0471404217 ISBN 13: 9780471404217

Publisher: Wiley, 2000

Synopsis

"If you lie awake worrying about the overnight transition from December 31, 1 b.c., to January 1, a.d. 1 (there is no year zero), then you will enjoy Duncan Steel's Marking Time."--American Scientist

"No book could serve as a better guide to the cumulative invention that defines the imaginary threshold to the new millennium."--Booklist

A Fascinating March through History and the Evolution of the Modern-Day Calendar . . .

In this vivid, fast-moving narrative, you'll discover the surprising story of how our modern calendar came about and how it has changed dramatically through the years. Acclaimed author Duncan Steel explores each major step in creating the current calendar along with the many different systems for defining the number of days in a week, the length of a month, and the number of days in a year. From the definition of the lunar month by Meton of Athens in 432 b.c. to the roles played by Julius Caesar, William the Conqueror, and Isaac Newton to present-day proposals to reform our calendar, this entertaining read also presents "timely" tidbits that will take you across the full span of recorded history. Find out how and why comets have been used as clocks, why there is no year zero between 1 b.c. and a.d. 1, and why for centuries Britain and its colonies rang in the New Year on March 25th. Marking Time will leave you with a sense of awe at the haphazard nature of our calendar's development. Once you've read this eye-opening book, you'll never look at the calendar the same way again.

About this title

Review:

"A calendar is a tool," the historian of science E.J. Bickerman once observed, "which cannot be justified by either logic or astronomy."

Duncan Steel, an English space scientist, extends that argument in Marking Time, a broad-ranging history of the Western calendar--a chronological system that is logical after a fashion, but strangely flawed all the same. Steel begins his account by considering George Washington's dual birthday, which he celebrated as falling on February 11, 1731, but Americans celebrated as February 22, 1732. Both, Steel shows, are correct, the discrepancy owing to a later calendrical reform that parts of the world have yet to catch up to (so that Russia's October Revolution, by non-Russian standards, occurred in November). Steel examines the long history of attempts to give the calendar a basis in astronomical fact, shows how the advent of the railroad brought with it the need for a system of standardized mean time, examines the likeliest dates for the birth and death of Jesus, and plucks countless fascinating oddments from the historical record. He doesn't shy away from advancing controversial ideas, one being that the meridian time of Washington, D.C. may be a more useful world standard than that of Greenwich, England--and not merely for political reasons. Neither is he afraid to use sometimes difficult mathematics to prove his points, giving his book a depth that many other popular studies of the calendar lack.

With the dawning millennium, time is much on our minds. This is a book to satisfy idle curiosity, settle dinner-table arguments, and simply enjoy. --Gregory McNamee

From the Inside Flap:

"Our various calendars are part of the music and art of life, not stark science." —Duncan Steel Did you know?...

• Russia’s October Revolution in 1917 actually occurred on November 7th
• For centuries, Britain and the colonies rang in the New Year on March 25th
• The Roman Empire originally observed an eight-day week
• The anno Domini (A.D.) year-counting system is wrong, and Jesus’ birth actually occurred some years before December 25, I B.C.

These are just a few of the little-known facts that you will find in acclaimed author Duncan Steel’s eye-opening chronicle of the evolution of the calendar, Marking Time: The Epic Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar. Steel takes you across the full span of recorded history, behind the seismic shifts within politics., religion, and science, and examines the ways in which people and events forged the calendar that we have today. Starting with Stonehenge and the first written records of the year and the day by the Sumerians around 3500 B.C., Marking Time charts the calendar’s ever-changing, erratic trajectory—from the Egyptians’ reliance on the star Sirius to the numbering of the years, linked to the celebration of Easter in Christian churches. You will also gain insight into:

• The mystery of the missing ten days
• The Venerable Bede and the origins of the anno Domini dating system
• How and why comets have been used as clocks
• Julius Caesar’s 445-day-long Year of Confusion
• Why there is no year zero between I B.C. and I A.D.
• Whether the year 2100 should be a double-leap year

A provocative history lesson and a unique, entertaining read rolled into one, Marking Time will leave you with a sense of awe at the random, hit-or-miss nature of our calendar’s development—a quality that parallels the growth of civilization itself. What results is a truthful, and, above all, very human view of the calendar as we know it. After reading Marking Time, you will never look at the calendar the same way again.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0471404217
• ISBN 13: 9780471404217
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432