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Making Time: Astronomical Time Measurement in Tokugawa Japan (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute)
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About Making Time: Astronomical Time Measurement In
Product Description What is time made of? We might balk at such a question, and reply that time is not made of anything—it is an abstract and universal phenomenon. In Making Time, Yulia Frumer upends this assumption, using changes in the conceptualization of time in Japan to show that humans perceive time as constructed and concrete. In the mid-sixteenth century, when the first mechanical clocks arrived in Japan from Europe, the Japanese found them interesting but useless, because they failed to display time in units that changed their length with the seasons, as was customary in Japan at the time. In 1873, however, the Japanese government adopted the Western equal-hour system as well as Western clocks. Given that Japan carried out this reform during a period of rapid industrial development, it would be easy to assume that time consciousness is inherent to the equal-hour system and a modern lifestyle, but Making Time suggests that punctuality and time-consciousness are equally possible in a society regulated by a variable-hour system, arguing that this reform occurred because the equal-hour system better reflected a new conception of time — as abstract and universal—which had been developed in Japan by a narrow circle of astronomers, who began seeing time differently as a result of their measurement and calculation practices. Over the course of a few short decades this new way of conceptualizing time spread, gradually becoming the only recognized way of treating time. Review "Will fascinate readers . . . . Making Time is the most comprehensive treatment of Japanese timekeeping to date, but it is not a specialized book for horologists interested in detailed information about clock mechanisms and makers. Frumer’s text is addressed to historians of science, technology, and Japanese culture. She deftly shows that technology is not just about practical needs; it is shaped by a society’s values and activities. . . . Frumer's analysis has reach far beyond Japan." , Physics Today "A superb study that is narrow in focus but broad in its implications. . . . This book is a remarkable achievement. The thesis is original and compelling, and Frumer deftly integrates an analysis of technological diffusion with a discussion of time as a social construct. She connects detailed explorations of clock mechanisms and astronomical calculations with insights into lived experience. This is a genuine contribution to our understanding of early modern and Meiji Japan." , American Historical Review "Yulia Frumer is an engaging narrator. . . . [whose] sophisticated analyses add valuable and original insight into the early development of astronomical sciences in Japan. . . . Making Time is pioneering in employing a cultural historical approach to demonstrate how Japanese astronomers interpreted and attached meanings to Western ideas, texts, clocks, instruments, and other materials. . . . The book is well furnished with clear color photographs of Japanese clocks as well as many black-and-white illustrations that might not only attract the reader but also help support Frumer’s analysis." , Isis "While it provides an exceptionally rich and focused case study grounded in careful research with Japanese documents and material objects, Frumer’s book also offers a critical analysis of what it is that we’re doing when we study the relationship between societies and technologies that has potentially far-reaching consequences well beyond the history of Japan." , New Books Network "Making superb use of the material evidence, Frumer undertakes a procedure analogous to the reverse-engineering practiced by Tokugawa clockmakers themselves, unpicking the logic behind puzzling pieces of an alien material culture. . . . Frumer’s substantive claims are always compelling, and the details she unearths are of endless interest. . . . [Her] penetrating analysis of astronomical time illuminates one crucial element of that complex time-scape without beginning to exhaust it. This rev
