Empires of Time

Introduction - our time - and theirs. Part 1 Sensing and marking time: the basic rhythms - tracking down the sense of time, a multitude of inner rhythms, mechanism as metaphor; early time reckoning - the oral mode, the written mode. Part 2 Our time - the imposition of order: the Western calendar - the day and its hours, the smallest units of time, the week and its days, the month and its moon, the months and their politics; the year and its accumulation in history - the Western year, long-time reckoning and great years, our creation stories, today's empire of the clock. Part 3 Their time - following the order of the skies: tribal societies and lunar-social time - the ecological cycle, structural time; the interlocking calendars of the Maya -introduction - three American empires, the Maya and the body count, the cycles of Venus, the Maya decline, characteristics of Maya timekeeping; the Aztecs and the Sun - a cycle of celebrations, the world diagram, the creation story, restructuring time to legitimize Aztec rule; the Incas and their orienation calendar - Sun watching, counting the days; eastern standard -time reckoning in China - the Chinese world view and sense of history, the Chinese calendar. Part 4 A world of time: building on the basic rhythms - recurring cycles, the linearization of time, controlling the rhythms.