[WIX]≫ Read Free The Calendar The 5000 Year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens and What Happened to the Missing Ten Days David Ewing Duncan 9781857029796 Books

The Calendar The 5000 Year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens and What Happened to the Missing Ten Days David Ewing Duncan 9781857029796 Books

Download As PDF : The Calendar The 5000 Year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens and What Happened to the Missing Ten Days David Ewing Duncan 9781857029796 Books

The Calendar The 5000 Year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens and What Happened to the Missing Ten Days David Ewing Duncan 9781857029796 Books

Duncan covers the determination of time measurement via religious uses of the moon versus the more distinct use of the sun for agricultural ends. Also covered especially well and in great detail is the loss of curiosity and knowledge by the Europeans in the centuries following the collapse of Rome and the retention of much knowledge concerning time by both Arab and Indian cultures. Also covered are the struggle to have a common calendar world-wide (not resolved until 1752 for Britain and the American colonies and until after WWI for the Russians) and even the struggle to use numbers for the days of the months rather than the Roman kalends, nones, and ides. The list of players in this squabble is not only huge, it is intensely revealing in terms of preconceived notions.


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The Calendar The 5000 Year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens and What Happened to the Missing Ten Days David Ewing Duncan 9781857029796 Books Reviews

One of the best works of the history of the calender I have ever read. Lots of interesting facts.
There is so very much information here that I hadn't realised until now. Also much info on changes the Catholic church made that I hadn't realised and that need to be questioned.
Great book!
I read this book many years ago and loved it. It is about the history of numbers and maths as much as the history of the calendar and in a fascinating, non-technical way. I was keen to share it with my friends but got them to promise they would return it. Alas, one of them didn't and it is such a wonderful, helpful, useful book I just had to replace it. I've now put it away as a "surprise" Christmas present and look forward to reading it again over the holidays.
This book is deeply interesting and explains how we wound up with the calendar that we did. A Roman yearly calendar, pagan day names, with a week cycle that seems to have originated in Babylon, with a Christian year dating system. For anyone interested in this topic (and even those who aren't) I highly recommend this book.
This is not just a history of calendars or man's attempt to measure the passage of time. Duncan has managed to fit that story within the larger epic of man's struggle out of ignorance and barbarism, with occasional backslides as Huns, Vikings and Crusaders plundered the settled.
He really gives a thrilling account of the cumulative effect of learning, and has given me dozens of new historical junctures to explore. Anyone who can make history so fascinating is a good scholar and author indeed.
By the way, the errata reported by "oestens" of Norway (see below) apparently stems from oestens' confusion over "A.D." versus "B.C." The author got it right.
David Ewing Duncan has done a masterful job in telling the incredible tale of mankind's wrestling for centuries with something that is as basic, and as certainly inescapable, as air, water and food--the measurement of time.Not only is this book well researched it is a very readable history that doesn't waste a lot of the reader's time going down blind alleys. It is wonderful piece of history that is still unfolding--how many ways are there to tell time, who decides and what is being used as a measurement of time are open ended questions that I came away with. Fascinating stuff and Mr. Duncan succeded in gaining and holding my rapt attention all weekend. I am almost ready to reread this book already.
Duncan covers the determination of time measurement via religious uses of the moon versus the more distinct use of the sun for agricultural ends. Also covered especially well and in great detail is the loss of curiosity and knowledge by the Europeans in the centuries following the collapse of Rome and the retention of much knowledge concerning time by both Arab and Indian cultures. Also covered are the struggle to have a common calendar world-wide (not resolved until 1752 for Britain and the American colonies and until after WWI for the Russians) and even the struggle to use numbers for the days of the months rather than the Roman kalends, nones, and ides. The list of players in this squabble is not only huge, it is intensely revealing in terms of preconceived notions.