The Global Transformation of Time: 1870-1950

For a rapidly globalizing world from the 19th century onwards, time meant a great deal. Keeping pace with progress required modern management and regulation of time. The rational and efficient concept of time also influenced states and rulers. Fine-tuning the rational time of trains and telegraphs, programs and schedules, and making their administration convenient became one of the main preoccupations of nation-states eager to cast a technocratic time network over national borders. However, for national times to be rational and efficient, they depended on their integration with other national times.

Global Transformations of Time tells the history of global time reform. The story begins with the nationwide implementation of mean times in France and Germany, then extends to Britain. After documenting the spread of mean times across countries in Europe and North America, it then examines British India as a colonial and anti-colonial example. It touches upon the discussions of Arab intellectuals and reformers on time management in Beirut, a Western and non-colonial late Ottoman province. After showcasing the perspective of Muslim scholars in the Eastern Mediterranean, it concludes with an examination of the League of Nations and many individuals and movements advocating for a series of reorganized calendars worldwide.