Measuring Time, Making History (Natalie Zemon Davis Annual Lecture Series at Central European University)

First Volume of he Natalie Zemon Davis Annual Lecture Series at Central European University, this small but rich book contains three lectures delivered at CEU. Explores some of the ways in which time matters or should matter to historians. Like everyone else, historians assume that time exists, yet despite its obvious importance to historical writing - what is history but the account of how things change over time? - writers of history do not often inquire into the meaning of time itself. Hunt asks a series of related questions about time in history. Why is time now again on the agenda, for historians and more generally in Western culture? How did Western Christian culture develop its distinctive way of measuring time (BC/AD or BCE/CE) and how does it influence our notion of history? What is the role of modernity - our most contentious temporal category - in the historical discipline? Is modernity an experience of temporality or an ideological construction? Are modernity, the discipline of history, and even the notion of history itself a western, and therefore imperialist, imposition? Should we, can we, move beyond the modern within the historical discipline? Time Is The Crucial Ingredient In History, And Yet Historians Rarely Talk About Time As Such. These Essays Offer New Insight Into The Development Of Modern Conceptions Of Time, From The Christian Dating System. (b.c./a.d. Or B.c.e./c.e.) To The Idea Of Modernity As A New Epoch In Human History. Are The Gregorian Calendar, World Standard Time, And Modernity Itself Simply Impositions Of Western Superiority? How Did The Idea Of Stages Of History Culminating In The Modern Period Arise? Is Time Really Accelerating? Can We - Should We - Try To Move To A New Chronological Framework, One That Reaches Back To The Origins Of Humans And Forward Away Or Beyond Modernity? These Questions Go To The Heart Of What History Means For Us Today. Time Is Now On The Agenda.--jacket. Is Time Historical? -- Modernity And History -- Post Times Or The Future Of The Past. Lynn Hunt. Lectures Presented In Nov. 2006. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. A collection of essays which offer insight into the development of modern conceptions of time, from the Christian dating system (BC/AD or BCE/CE) to the idea of "modernity" as an epoch in human history.