Norbert Elias

Originally published in 1991 and now reissued by Continuum International, this book consists of three sections. The first, written in 1939, was either left out of Elias's most famous book, The Civilizing Process, or was written along with it. Part 2 was written between 1940 and 1960. Part 3 is from 1987. The entire …

The nature of time, and how various societies describe and measure the passage of time, has long been one of the most fascinating areas of social history and philosophy. In this essay Norbert Elias argues that what we call "time" is neither an innate feature of the human mind, nor an immanent characteristic of …