A Geography Of Time: The Temporal Misadventures of a Social Psychologist

Professor Levine wrote this book as a result of a year-long sabbatical, where he was paid to do nothing more than travel the world observing how different cultures move at different paces (talk about luxury!) There are no surprises in his findings: highly industrialized societies move at a faster pace, people in Third World nations won't necessarily turn up at an appointment time, fast-paced societies have more heart disease, slow-paced ones more compassion, and Japanese politeness demands circuitous answers to uncomfortably direct inquiries.Chapter 3 is "A Brief History of Clock Time," and recounts a quick history of clocks and time-keeping. Early attempts (water clocks, sand dials, incense burners) tended to measure intervals rather than marking the progression of the day, although sun dials and pendulum clocks eventually filled that role.This leads naturally into chapter 4, "Living on Event Time" where pre-chronometer cultures gauge time by natural events (annual floods, the seasons, the time it takes cows to graze) rather than artificial constructs. The tension between "clock time" and "event time" is still troublesome for travelers between cultures, such as our professor here. Valid point, but hardly new.I wished Dr. Levine had researched why the year has twelve months, and why the months have the number of days that they have, why the days are divided up into 24 hours of 60 minutes each and 60 seconds. He does recount, briefly, some experiments in revolutionary France (12 months of 30 days each -- with 5 "bonus days" at the end of the year -- consisting of three 10-day weeks and decimal hours), and the Russian revolution (months comprised of six weeks of 5 days each) but he never really explores the consequences or motivations for such experiments.For all its lack of curiosity the book is entertaining and well-written, and would make a perfect "airplane book" on your next long flight to a different time zone.

As someone whose has traveled considerably over the last 35 years, I have often found time — local time — as something of a challenge. This book provided insights into the cultural determinants of the perception of time and its uses. The authors experiences helped me to understand many of the strange, maddening, and wonderful experiences I’ve had while traveling.

Though this book is old enough to order a beer, it's still one of the most accessible research-based accounts of the role temporality plays in culture clashes. The last chapter offers practical suggestions for people interested in having the best of both worlds: the productivity of clock-driven time cultures and the ease and connectivity of event-based time cultures. Each person I talk with about the concepts in this book has a light go on over their head and story to share about a culture clash they've experienced that they now see as caused by different understandings, beliefs, and values around time. With so many sources of conflict in our social lives today, I'd even go so far as to say everyone should read this book.

Apart from the author's relevant study on the pace of life around the globe, the rest of the book reads as a personal memoir of entertaining stories, many of them told from a biased, western (American) point of view. Even when Levine tries to push aside his one-sided perspective, he makes comparisons that are absolutely twisted and misguided, such as the one expressed on page 111:"There is a practice in many Arab cultures whereby a young woman who is caught being intimate with a man she is not married to is sometimes murdered by her brothers. To Westerners, this is uncivilized behavior. But the brother is committed to protecting the role of an important institution-the family-in the social pattern. The temporal behavior of important Brazilians must, similarly, be understood as part of a larger pattern."Parts of the book are still interesting, but I would prefer to read less on Levine's travels and subjective experiences around the world, and more on objective research on the topic of time.

This book was great introduction to time and culture. I found the study of Japan most interesting. The study I am most interested in is how time is used in planning and this was not covered. It seems there is a big difference between business and governments/scientists. The rule seems to be that it is difficult to convince someone when his pay is based on his not understanding it.

I've enjoyed the book and have no complaints with it's contents. But the digital edition was done sloppily. A lot of hyphenated words mid sentence; footnotes not working (they appear in the text but have no hyperlinks to jump back and forth); it has the same index of the printed edition, as an image and not text, containing references to the page numbers. Which are useless for the Kindle edition. Sometimes there are words in a line for which their vertical position is below or above the rest of that line.

I love this book! It is brilliantly researched and an engaging read. It is informative about time, cultures, differences, and similarities and does a brilliant job of linking facts and data with our human experience. It is the kind of book that is energizing for all the new ideas and insights available to the reader.Dr. Tracy Brower, author of Bring Work to Life by Bringing Life to Work: A Guide for Leaders and Organiztions

At times didactic or reductionist in its academic approach, the book overall is an interesting read on the concept of time. I especially enjoyed the historical takes on time and learning how our current constructs of time came to be.

A lazily researched book full of unchallenged assumptions and generalisations about cultures. The conclusions in this book say more about the writer's prejudices than answering the questions he poses. The most basic scientific protocols (such as double blind etc) are not adhered to so, despite some attempts at statistical analysis, the results cannot be trusted. Worst of all 'women's work's' such as childcare and housework are categorised by the author alongside hobbies and as something women do for fun. Only paid work (he makes a broad assumption is done mainly by men) is considered work and women's time is not considered in any depth at all. This book is about 20 years old but, even then it must have been considered outdated.

This book is a really good introduction to our perception of time. It would have been good however to have had a little more info on Philosopher's who have talked about it. Overall I learned a lot though

Covers unusual idiosyncrasies and habits of various cultures. Useful material for my ESL classes outside the U.S..

Fascinating book, well written and easy to understand.

Decent condition good price