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9780192862051

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The author's style is both precise and appealing.... Intriguing and compelling...offers...much to ponder about the relationship of calendars and culture. --Frederick Pratter, Christian Science Monitor<br> Richard's compendious history of the calendar reflects the huge range of the subject, touching as it does on topics as diverse as the origin of writing, the French Revolution, Hindu astronomy and various proposals for a thirteen-month year...perhaps the most complete and lively treatise on temporal lore published this millennium. --The Sciences<br>

In this fascinating history of the accounting and charting of time, Richards describes the development of each of the most important calendars of the world, ancient and modern. He examines their astronomical background, the ways in which weeks, months and years were calculated in different societies and the long struggle over the centuries to agree a standard calendar (which did not happen until 1949). From the 'time maps' of prehistory and the ancient Egyptians to the Julian and Gregorian calendars, the sweep of this book is immense and its detail absorbing. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

E. G. (Edward Graham) Richards was formerly a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Biophysics at King's College, University of London. His interest in the calendar was sparked when he wrote and published computer programmes for converting dates from one calendar to another. An historical note on the various calendars included in the exercise was intended to accompany the programmes but as the author's appetite for knowledge about the calendars grew, so did the note. It eventually became, after many years of research, this book. Dr Richards and his wife live in London.

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