The Fabric of Historical Time

This Element attempts to be the ultimate guide to historical time.

Zoltán Boldizsár Simon (Author), Marek Tamm (Author)

9781009108331, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 August 2023

75 pages
27 x 18 x 0.7 cm, 0.15 kg

Historical time is a notoriously elusive notion. Yet, as societies attempt to make sense of rapidly changing worlds, it gains a new significance in the twenty-first century. This Element sketches a theory of historical time as based on a distinction between temporality and historicity. It approaches the fabric of historical time as varying relational arrangements and interactions of multiple temporalities and historicities. In the fabric, kinds of temporalities and historicities emerge, come to being, fade out, transform, cease to exist, merge, coexist, overlap, arrange and rearrange in constellations, and clash and conflict in a dynamic without a predetermined plot. The Element pays special attention to the more-than-human temporalities of the Anthropocene, the technology-fueled historicities of runaway changes, and the conflicts in the fabric of historical time at the intersections of technological, ecological, and social change.

Introduction: the fabric of historical time
1. Modern historical time and its exhaustion
2. A new multiplicity of historical times
3. Conflicts in the fabric of historical time
4. One fabric, many times: a resolution
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: History: theory & methods [HBA]