Shaping the Day

Abstract

Timekeeping is an essential activity in the modern world, and we take it for granted that our lives are shaped by the hours of the day. This book is a study of the practice of timekeeping in England and Wales between 1300 and 1800 and how it was brought about by centuries of technical innovation and circulation of ideas about time. The authors illustrate how a particular kind of common sense about time came into being, and how it developed during this period. The study cites famous figures like John Harrison, who solved the problem of longitude, and less familiar characters like sailors, gamblers, and burglars. Overturning many common perceptions of the past — for example, that clock time and the industrial revolution were intimately related — this historical study is interested in how ‘telling the time’ has come to dominate our way of life.

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