Chronos: The West Confronts Time (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)

As omnipresent as it is ungraspable, time has always inspired and eluded attempts to comprehend it. For the early Christians, for the twenty-first-century world, how have past and future been woven into the present? In Chronos , a leading French historian ranges from Western antiquity to the Anthropocene, pinpointing the crucial turning points in our relationship to time. François Hartog considers the genealogy of Western temporalities, examining the orders of time and their divisions into epochs. Beginning with how the ancient Greeks understood time, Chronos explores the fashioning of a Christian time in the early centuries of the Catholic Church. Christianity's hegemony over time reigned over Europe and beyond, only to ebb as modern time—presided over by the notion of relentless progress—set out on its march toward the future. Hartog emphasizes the deep uncertainties the world now faces as we reckon with the arrival and significance of the Anthropocene age. Humanity has become capable of altering the climate, triggering in mere life spans changes that once took place across geological epochs. In this threatening new age, which has challenged all existing temporal constructions, what will become of the old ways of understanding time? Intertwining reflections on intellectual history and historiography with critiques of contemporary presentism and apocalypticism, Chronos brings depth and erudition to debates over the nature of the era we are living through and offers keen insight into the experience of historical time. In Chronos, a leading French historian ranges from Western antiquity to the Anthropocene, pinpointing the crucial turning points in our relationship to time. Francois Hartog considers the genealogy of Western temporalities, examining the order of times and the divisions of time into epochs. As omnipresent as it is ungraspable, time has always inspired and eluded attempts to comprehend it. For the early Christians, for the twenty-first-century world, how have past and future been woven into the present? In Chronos, a leading French historian ranges from Western antiquity to the Anthropocene, pinpointing the crucial turning points in our relationship to time.Franois Hartog considers the genealogy of Western temporalities, examining the orders of time and their divisions into epochs. Beginning with how the ancient Greeks understood time, Chronos explores the fashioning of a Christian time in the early centuries of the Catholic Church. Christianitys hegemony over time reigned over Europe and beyond, only to ebb as modern timepresided over by the notion of relentless progressset out on its march toward the future. Hartog emphasizes the deep uncertainties the world now faces as we reckon with the arrival and significance of the Anthropocene age. Humanity has become capable of altering the climate, triggering in mere life spans changes that once took place across geological epochs. In this threatening new age, which has challenged all existing temporal constructions, what will become of the old ways of understanding time?Intertwining reflections on intellectual history and historiography with critiques of contemporary presentism and apocalypticism, Chronos brings depth and erudition to debates over the nature of the era we are living through and offers keen insight into the experience of historical time As omnipresent as it is ungraspable, time has always inspired and eluded attempts to comprehend it. For the early Christians, for the twenty-first-century world, how have past and future been woven into the present? In Chronos , a leading French historian ranges from Western antiquity to the Anthropocene, pinpointing the crucial turning points in our relationship to time. François Hartog considers the genealogy of Western temporalities, examining the order of times and the divisions of time into epochs. Beginning with how the ancient Greeks understood time, Chronos explores the fashioning of a Christian time in the early centuries of the Catholic Church. Christianity's hegemony over time reigned over Europe and beyond, only to ebb as modern time--progress--set out on its march toward the future. Hartog emphasizes the deep uncertainties the world now faces as we reckon with the arrival and significance of the Anthropocene age. Humanity has become capable of altering the climate, triggering in mere life spans changes that once took place across geological epochs. In this threatening new age, which has challenged all existing temporal constructions, what will become of the old ways of understanding time? Intertwining reflections on intellectual history and historiography with critiques of contemporary presentism and apocalypticism, Chronos brings depth and erudition to debates over the nature of the era we are living through and offers keen insight into the experience of historical time. ""Ubiquitous and inevitable, such is Chronos. It is, first and foremost, impossible to grasp. Elusive, but at the same time, it is the one thing that humans have never given up trying to understand." In his work Hartog has closely intertwined the intellectual history of ancient Greece, historiography, and the study of our relationship to time throughout history. This book is a meditation on the order of time. Reading it, we embark on a journey beginning with how the Greeks understood Chronos and ending with deep contemporary uncertainties. Along the way Hartog explores time as laid down by the Christians, devised and implemented by a nascent church-- a present stuck between incarnation and the Last Judgment. We follow Christianity's idea of time, how it was disseminated and established, before moving on to the rushing power of modern time, driven by progress, and fast-forwarding toward the future. Today, the future is clouded, and an unprecedented time has emerged, one which was rapidly designated as the Anthropocene, a new geological era, in which the human species has become the leading force. What will become of the old ways of understanding Chronos? What new strategies should be formulated to face this threatening, immeasurable future, while simultaneously we are confined in the limiting time Hartog calls "presentism"?"-- Provided by publisher