Time: An Essay

The nature of time, and how various societies describe and measure the passage of time, has long been one of the most fascinating areas of social history and philosophy. In this widely-acclaimed work, now available in paperback, the author shows how attitudes to time have differed from early to modern societies by taking examples from a wide range of societies at every level of development. Elias argues that what we call ‘time’ is an achievement of human synthesis which can be understood only in connection with certain processes of social development. Norbert Elias taught and researched at the universities of Leicester, Ghana, Frankfurt and Bielefeld. At the time of his death in August 1990, he was considered to be one of the outstanding social thinkers of our century. His previous Blackwell books include The Civilizing Process (two volumes), The Court Society, The Loneliness of the Dying, Involvement and Detachment, The Society of Individuals and, with E. Dunning, Quest for Excitement.