David Landes' Clocks: Revolution in Term Paper

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..crucial to Chinese calendrical calculation and astrological divination" (21). In principle, because the legitimacy of the emperor depended upon the harmony of the heavens, it was important that such early clocks be accurate, but they were not important in the way that a Westerner today would think of the importance of time, in terms of making or synchronizing a critical appointment with other people.

The Western clock succeeded because it could be miniaturized and personalized, and because there was a greater practical and cultural need for clocks in the West. When missionaries later came to China one of the few things the Chinese approved of from the foreigner's culture was their mechanized clocks. One of the reasons that the Jesuits had such sophisticated clocks was their faith's great need for determining accurate daily time, as long ago in monasteries, there were fixed times for prayers. Europe's embrace of the clock allowed for the development of mechanized capitalism with a fixed schedule and capitalism allowed factories to churn out clocks.

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This made industrialized Great Britain the earliest producer of the mechanized clock for every home. Britain was eventually superseded by the Swiss, who abandoned much of their traditional agriculture crafts for the more profitable specialization of watch making. Then, in the 19th century, cheaper American mass manufacturing came to dominate the clock industry, and America was later taken over by the digital fluency of the Japanese in the 20th century.

Clocks have changed, and grown increasingly accurate, a reflection of technological improvements but also the growing global obsession with time. And this is Landes' paradox -- our obsession with accurate time-keeping and regulating our lives according to time rather than nature drives the clock and watch making industry, yet as the industry improves, so our obsession grows. Perhaps the obsession will lessen as we become more of a 24-hour society, than a society with a neat, 8-hour workday, but until then we remain a society obsessed with keeping time and the loss of time.

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