Power and Time

Temporalities in Conflict and the Making of History

Edelstein Dan, Geroulanos Stefanos, Wheatley Natasha

Time is the backdrop of historical inquiry, yet it is much more than a featureless setting for events. Different temporalities interact dynamically; sometimes they coexist tensely, sometimes they clash violently. In this innovative volume, editors Dan Edelstein, Stefanos Geroulanos, and Natasha Wheatley bring together essays that challenge how we interpret history by focusing on the nexus of two concepts – "power" and "time" – as they manifest in a wide variety of case studies. Analyzing history, culture, politics, technology, law, art, and science, this engaging book shows how "temporal regimes" are constituted through the shaping of power in historically specific ways. "Power and Time" includes seventeen essays on a wide variety of subjects: human rights; sovereignty; Islamic, European, and Indian history; slavery; capitalism; revolution; the Supreme Court; and even the Manson Family. "Power and Time" will be an agenda-setting volume, highlighting the work of some of the world's most respected and innovative contemporary historians and posing fundamental questions for the craft of history.

About the Author

Dan Edelstein is the William H. Bonsall Professor of French and (by courtesy) professor of history at Stanford University. He is the author of "The Terror of Natural Right", "The Enlightenment", and "On the Spirit of Rights", all published by the University of Chicago Press.

Stefanos Geroulanos is professor of history at New York University. He is the author of "Transparency in Postwar France" and co-author of "The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe", published by the University of Chicago Press.

Natasha Wheatley is assistant professor of history at Princeton University.

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