The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week

"Days, months, and years were given to us by nature, but we invented the week for ourselves. There is nothing inevitable about a seven-day cycle, or about any other kind of week; it represents an arbitrary rhythm imposed on our activities, unrelated to anything in the natural order. But where the week exists--and there have been many cultures where it doesn't--it is so deeply embedded in our experience that we hardly ever question its rightness, or think of it as an artificial convention; for most of us it is a matter of 'second nature.'


Author: Eviatar Zerubavel
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 03/15/1989
Pages: 220
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.01w x 0.59d
ISBN13: 9780226981659
ISBN10: 0226981657
BISAC Categories:
- History | General
- Science | Time

About the Author
Eviatar Zerubavel is professor of sociology at Rutgers University. His books include Hidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life and Patterns of Time in Hospital Life: A Sociological Perspective.