The Story of Time - Softcover

Lippincott, Kristen; Eco, Umberto

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1858940737 ISBN 13: 9781858940731

Publisher: Merrell Pub Ltd, 1999

Synopsis

Multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural, The Story of Time is published to mark the millennium and examine the very quality that gives the millennium its meaning.'

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

This monumental publication is one of the most important, high-profile books published to mark the millennium, examining the very subject that gives the millennium its meaning: time. Multidisciplinary and cross-cultural in its subject-matter and approach, and all-encompassing in its scope, the book is written by an outstanding international cast of authors, including Umberto Eco and Sir Ernst Gombrich, each one a renowned expert from the fields of science, art, history, philosophy, or culture.

Lavishly illustrated with objects from all corners of the world, from ancient Egyptian and Babylonian calendars and Titian’s allegories to the distorted-clock paintings of Salvador Dalí and recent photographs of deep space taken by the Hubble telescope, The Story of Time questions people’s perceptions of time and reflects the many ways in which cultures around the world have responded to time, measured time, and expressed their understanding of time.

From Publishers Weekly:

Just in time for the new millennium comes this enormous, amply illustrated compilation of 23 essays on aspects of time from experts in various disciplines, among them history and historiography, music, geology, literary criticism, anthropology, religion and the history of engineering. The venerated art historian E.H. Gombrich contributes a compact "History of Anniversaries," from the so-called "jubilee" of the Hebrew Bible through a famous 1769 "Shakespeare Jubilee" and on to our present glut of commemorations. John MacDonald's intriguing "Inuit Time" explains how traditional cultures of the North American Arctic taught their children to wake up early in the morning, and how newly Christian tribal communities (who had to know which day was the Sabbath) grappled with the alien concept of weeks. Lorne Campbell describes some temporal problems of portraiture, as when a slow-working painter finds that her subject's appearance has changed over multiple sittings. Jonathan Betts outlines "The Growth of Modern Timekeeping: From Pendulums to Atoms." And Umberto Eco zips from St. Augustine to the modern philosophy of language to the Millennium Bug in a typically provocative foreword. Three hundred color pictures and photos, many with long explanatory blurbs, portray such time-related items as Renaissance sundials and klepsydras (water-clocks), the Hindu god Vishnu (creator and destroyer of world and time) and a bizarre French clock from 1795, which indicated not only 60-minute hours and 24-hour days, but also the short-lived revolutionary system of decimal time, whose 10 hours a day had 100 minutes each. The entire enjoyable and visually impressive volume is timed to coincide with an exhibit at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, where the year 2000 will officially begin. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Merrell Pub Ltd
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1858940737
• ISBN 13: 9781858940731
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304