The Global Transformation of Time: 1870–1950 1870–1950

This Book Is A Revisionist Account Of Attempts To Unify Clock Times, Calendars, And Social Time, And A Methodological Intervention In Discussions About Writing Global And Transnational History. The Book Uses The Reform Of Time Between 1870 And 1950 As A Lens Through Which To Understand The Dynamics Of Globalization. Based On Research In Archives Around The World In Multiple Languages, Individual Chapters Take The Story Of Uniform Time To France And Germany, Britain, The British Empire/german Colonies/latin America, British India, Arab Elites In The Levant, Muslim Scholars In Egypt, And To The League Of Nations. The Author Shows How Cross-border Flows Of Ideas And Concepts Of Uniform Time Resulted In A Nationalization And Regionalization Of Temporal Identities. As A Consequence, Uniform, Accurate Clock Time Remained Nonstandardized, Unstable, And Incomplete As Late As The 1930s And 1940s. Calendar Reform, Just As Vivid And Vast A Field Of Activism As Clock Time, Never Came To Pass Altogether Due To Strong National And Religious Objections To A Uniform World Calendar. When Ideas About Uniform Time Moved Across Borders And Continents, They Often Did So Along Lateral, Informal Trajectories Of Transmission. Local Initiatives Often Preceded National Time Politics. Top-down Attempts To Devise Time Reform Schemes At International Conferences, To Implement Them Nationally, And Assure Application In The Most Remote Local Contexts Rarely Succeeded. Rather, Globalization Disheveled Such Hierarchies Of The International, The National, And The Local. The Book, Then, Emphasizes The Importance Of Nationalism And States As Well As Attention To Scale In Writing The History Of Global Flows And Connections-- Introduction -- National Times In A Globalizing World -- Saving Social Time -- From National To Uniform Time Around The Globe -- A Battle Of Colonial Times -- Comparing Time Management -- Islamic Calendar Times -- One Calendar For All -- Conclusion. Vanessa Ogle. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. "This book is a revisionist account of attempts to unify clock times, calendars, and social time, and a methodological intervention in discussions about writing global and transnational history. The book uses the reform of time between 1870 and 1950 as a lens through which to understand the dynamics of globalization. Based on research in archives around the world in multiple languages, individual chapters take the story of uniform time to France and Germany, Britain, the British Empire/German colonies/Latin America, British India, Arab elites in the Levant, Muslim scholars in Egypt, and to the League of Nations. The author shows how cross-border flows of ideas and concepts of uniform time resulted in a nationalization and regionalization of temporal identities. As a consequence, uniform, accurate clock time remained nonstandardized, unstable, and incomplete as late as the 1930s and 1940s. Calendar reform, just as vivid and vast a field of activism as clock time, never came to pass altogether due to strong national and religious objections to a uniform World Calendar. When ideas about uniform time moved across borders and continents, they often did so along lateral, informal trajectories of transmission. Local initiatives often preceded national time politics. Top-down attempts to devise time reform schemes at international conferences, to implement them nationally, and assure application in the most remote local contexts rarely succeeded. Rather, globalization disheveled such hierarchies of the international, the national, and the local. The book, then, emphasizes the importance of nationalism and states as well as attention to scale in writing the history of global flows and connections"-- Résumé de l'éditeur "This book is a revisionist account of attempts to unify clock times, calendars, and social time, and a methodological intervention in discussions about writing global and transnational history. The book uses the reform of time between 1870 and 1950 as a lens through which to understand the dynamics of globalization. Based on research in archives around the world in multiple languages, individual chapters take the story of uniform time to France and Germany, Britain, the British Empire/German colonies/Latin America, British India, Arab elites in the Levant, Muslim scholars in Egypt, and to the League of Nations. The author shows how cross-border flows of ideas and concepts of uniform time resulted in a nationalization and regionalization of temporal identities. As a consequence, uniform, accurate clock time remained nonstandardized, unstable, and incomplete as late as the 1930s and 1940s. Calendar reform, just as vivid and vast a field of activism as clock time, never came to pass altogether due to strong national and religious objections to a uniform World Calendar. When ideas about uniform time moved across borders and continents, they often did so along lateral, informal trajectories of transmission. Local initiatives often preceded national time politics. Top-down attempts to devise time reform schemes at international conferences, to implement them nationally, and assure application in the most remote local contexts rarely succeeded. Rather, globalization disheveled such hierarchies of the international, the national, and the local. The book, then, emphasizes the importance of nationalism and states as well as attention to scale in writing the history of global flows and connections"-- Provided by publisher As new networks of railways, steamships, and telegraph communications brought distant places into unprecedented proximity, previously minor discrepancies in local time-telling became a global problem. Vanessa Ogle’s chronicle of the struggle to standardize clock times and calendars from 1870 to 1950 highlights the many hurdles that proponents of uniformity faced in establishing international standards. Time played a foundational role in nineteenth-century globalization. Growing interconnectedness prompted contemporaries to reflect on the annihilation of space and distance and to develop a global consciousness. Time―historical, evolutionary, religious, social, and legal―provided a basis for comparing the world’s nations and societies, and it established hierarchies that separated “advanced” from “backward” peoples in an age when such distinctions underwrote European imperialism. Debates and disagreements on the varieties of time drew in a wide array of observers: German government officials, British social reformers, colonial administrators, Indian nationalists, Arab reformers, Muslim scholars, and League of Nations bureaucrats. Such exchanges often heightened national and regional disparities. The standardization of clock times therefore remained incomplete as late as the 1940s, and the sought-after unification of calendars never came to pass. __The Global Transformation of Time__ reveals how globalization was less a relentlessly homogenizing force than a slow and uneven process of adoption and adaptation that often accentuated national differences.

As railways, steamships, and telegraph communications brought distant places into unprecedented proximity, previously minor discrepancies in local time-telling became a global problem. Vanessa Ogle's chronicle of the struggle to standardize clock times and calendars from 1870 to 1950 highlights the many hurdles that proponents of uniformity faced.