A geography of time : the temporal misadventures of a social psychologist, or how every culture keeps time just a little bit differently

In this engaging and humorous book, eminent social psychologist Robert Levine explores a dimension of our experience that we take for granted - our experience of time. Taking us on an enchanting tour through the ages and around the world, we travel to Brazil, where to be three hours late is perfectly acceptable, and to Japan, where he finds a sense of the long-term that is unheard of in the West, as well as to remote places in the world where 'nature time', the rhythms of the sun and the seasons, is the only time to live by. From sundials of ancient Greece to the origins of 'clock time' in the industrial Revolution, Levine asks, how do we use our time? Are we ruled by the clock? What does this do to our cities, our bodies? Perhaps, he argues, time as a human construct has come to definite and constrain cultures, while instead we ought to function 'multitemporally,' each of us charting our own geography of time How do we use our time? Are we being ruled by the clock? The author asks us to explore a dimension of our experience that we take for granted - our perception of time. Taking us on a tour of time through the ages and around the world, it aims to show how time structures our lives and our surroundings in sometimes surprising ways An enchanting and humourous tour of time through the ages and around the world.