Book
Temporal Realities and Experience
Now available from Stanford University Press
What follows below are comments from early readers of The Human Organization of Time: Temporal Realities and Experience, the book's description in the Fall 2002 Stanford University Press catalog, and more comments from early readers.
Comments from Early Readers:
Finally a masterful book about time. Bluedorn's work is comprehensive and cutting-edge, laying out the interplay of time with fundamental aspects of organizations and individuals. It should be on every serious organizational scholar's bookshelf.
This is a wonderful and important book, full of fascinating information, insights, conjectures, and constructs. Bluedorn forges a compelling, often brilliant, case for the importance of time, and of our roles as current stewards of the temporal commons. The scholarship is impeccable. The book's language--sensitive, evocative, sweeping--is often transcendental. From the Big Bang to the Bolshevik revolution to the puzzles of Deep Time, from the social construction of zero to the theory of relativitiy, from the clock in the Royal Tower of Charles V to the Atomic Watch, from a time capsule on Omaha Beach to the Vietnam Memorial, from the gates of Trenton State Prison to the gates of Dante's Inferno, from hominids of the Great Rift Valley to zebras of the Serengeti, the book weaves a compelling fabric of temporal threads. Bluedorn has found power and poetry in time.
The Human Organization of Time is a broad look at how we truly think about time. It unifies the many human patterns of time-scale concepts and gives depth and perspective to a complex field. Thorough and insightful, it will become the standard work.
From the Fall 2002 Stanford University Press catalog, a description of The Human Organization of Time: Temporal Realities and Experience
"What is time then?" asked St. Augustine some 1600 years ago. It was a question he could not answer, and over the centuries that followed, it was one that few scholars dared to address. Yet there are answers to this question of the true nature of time, and this book discusses several of them as a means of approaching its central concern: that humanity creates a variety of times and these different times affect the experiences of life-as times vary, so does life. Not so much focusing on watches, clocks, and calendars (though these are covered), the author argues that time is a fundamental component of the technological development of humanity.
The book addresses the relationships between time and life on three fundamental premises: (1) all times are not the same, (2) all times are social constructions, and (3) the times humanity creates direct the way humanity lives. The book addresses the major ways in which times differ (polychro- nicity, speed and punctuality, and orientation to past, present and future), how these differences are coordinated (entrainment), and how these differences affect human life, including such extreme effects that produce the best and worst of times. Building on these differences and the effects they produce, the author examines the possibility of humanity consciously creating more good times than bad. Throughout the analysis, a vital connection between time and life gradually emerges, namely, the impact of time on the meaning of life itself.
Materials from many disciplines inform the discussions, notably theory and research from the social and behavioral sciences, in particular the organization sciences. The author uses historical examples extensively throughout the book, but also presents new results that derive from original data he has collected.
The book will not only be valuable to those involved in the management and organization sciences, but also to sociologists and psychologists, who have largely avoided coming to terms with one of the central issues of human life--time.
More comments from early readers:
The Human Organization of Time stands to be a definitive source for those interested in temporality and time. Bluedorn's knowledge of diverse literatures and his attention both to historical perspectives as well as contemporary theorizing and research is noteworthy. Issues of time and temporality pervade the human experience; Bluedorn helps us to appreciate temporality as a social construction with very real consequences for organizations and their members.
Recently, there has been an explosion in research on time. This book provides a much needed summary of that work. The Human Organization of Time will prove a valuable resource to anyone interested in temporal research in organizations.
A remarkable and original contribution to our understanding of the social construction of time and its effects on people and organizations. Playing off against a backdrop of work preoccupied with enduring and stable features of social life, Bluedorn underscores the importance of temporal features - pace, tempo, rhythm, entrainment, and historical turning points.