Arno Borst
German historian and medievalist, long-time professor at the University of Konstanz, noted for influential studies of medieval intellectual and social history, including work on time-reckoning (computus), monastic culture, and the transmission of knowledge.
Books
This list of books are ONLY the books that have been ranked on the lists that are aggregated on this site. This is not a comprehensive list of all books by this author.
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1. The Ordering Of Time
From the Ancient Computus to the Modern Computer
A sweeping cultural and intellectual history of how Western societies have measured, interpreted, and regulated time, from medieval computus and liturgical calendars through mechanical clocks, historical periodization, and standardized civil time, to the abstractions of the computer age. Drawing on chronicles, tables, schedules, and technologies, it traces the shift from cyclical sacred rhythms to linear, quantified, and administratively useful time. Along the way, it shows how changing temporal orders shaped power, knowledge, and everyday life, and how disputes over calendars and chronology reflected broader social transformations.