Time - Helga Nowotny

"Helga Nowotny's exploration of the forms and meaning of time incontemporary life is panoramic without in any way partaking of theblandness of a survey. From the artificial time of the scientificlaboratory to the distinctively modern yearning for one's own time,she regards every topic in this wide-ranging book from a freshangle of vision, one which reveals unsuspected affinities betweenthe bravest, newest worlds of global technology and the mostancient worlds of myth."
--Lorraine Daston, University of Chicago


This book represents a major contribution to the understanding oftime, giving particular attention to time in relation to modernity.The development of industrialism, the author points out, was basedupon a linear and abstract conception of time. Today we see thatform of production, and the social institutions associated with it,supplanted by flexible specialization and just-in-time productionsystems. New information and communication technologies have made afundamental impact here. But what does all this mean for temporalregimes? How can we understand the transformation of time and spaceinvolved in the bewildering variety of options on offer in apostmodern world?


The author provides an incisive analysis of the temporalimplications of modern communication. She considers theimplications of worldwide simultaneous experience, made possible bysatellite technologies, and considers the reorganization of timeinvolved in the continuous technological innovation that marks ourera. In this puzzling universe of action, how does one achieve a'time of one's own'? The discovery of a specific time perspectivecentred in the individual, she shows, expresses a yearning forforms of experience that are subversive of establishedinstitutional patterns.


This brilliant study, became a classic in Germany, will be ofinterest to students and professionals working in the areas ofsocial theory, sociology, politics and anthropology.