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In this pioneering history of transportation and communication in the modern Middle East, On Barak argues that contrary to accepted wisdom technological modernity in Egypt did not drive a sense of time focused on standardization only. Surprisingly, the introduction of the steamer, railway, telegraph, tramway, and telephone in colonial Egypt actually triggered the development of unique timekeeping practices that resignified and subverted the typical modernist infatuation with expediency and promptness. These counter tempos, predicated on uneasiness over "dehumanizing" European standards of efficiency, sprang from and contributed to non-linear modes of arranging time. Barak shows how these counter tempos formed and developed with each new technological innovation during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, contributing to a particularly Egyptian sense of time that extends into the present day, exerting influence over contemporary political language in the Arab world. The universal notion of a modern mechanical standard time and the deviations supposedly characterizing non-Western settings "from time immemorial," On Time provocatively argues, were in fact mutually constitutive and mutually reinforcing.

Time --- Time perception --- Technology --- #SBIB:39A77 --- #SBIB:39A4 --- Applied science --- Arts, Useful --- Science, Applied --- Useful arts --- Science --- Industrial arts --- Material culture --- Chronometry, Mental --- Duration, Intuition of --- Intuition of duration --- Mental chronometry --- Time, Cognition of --- Time estimation --- Orientation (Psychology) --- Perception --- Hours (Time) --- Geodetic astronomy --- Nautical astronomy --- Horology --- Social aspects --- Etnografie: Noord-Afrika en het Midden-Oosten --- Toegepaste antropologie --- British Occupation of Egypt (1882-1936) --- Egypt --- Égypte --- Ägypten --- Egitto --- Egipet --- Egiptos --- Miṣr --- Southern Region (United Arab Republic) --- Egyptian Region (United Arab Republic) --- Iqlīm al-Janūbī (United Arab Republic) --- Egyptian Territory (United Arab Republic) --- Egipat --- Arab Republic of Egypt --- A.R.E. --- ARE (Arab Republic of Egypt) --- Jumhūrīyat Miṣr al-ʻArabīyah --- Mitsrayim --- Egipt --- Ijiptʻŭ --- Misri --- Ancient Egypt --- Gouvernement royal égyptien --- جمهورية مصر العربية --- مِصر‎ --- مَصر‎ --- Maṣr --- Khēmi --- エジプト --- Ejiputo --- Egypti --- Egypten --- מצרים --- United Arab Republic --- History --- Social conditions --- Time -- Social aspects -- Egypt.. --- Time perception -- Social aspects -- Egypt.. --- Technology -- Social aspects -- Egypt.. --- Egypt -- History -- British occupation, 1882-1936.. --- Egypt -- Social conditions -- 19th century.. --- Egypt -- Social conditions -- 20th century. --- 19th century. --- 20th century. --- anthropologists. --- anthropology. --- arab world. --- chronometry. --- communication. --- concept of time. --- countertempos. --- egypt. --- egyptian history. --- historians. --- middle east scholars. --- middle east. --- modern egypt. --- modern history. --- modernization. --- non linear time. --- non standard time. --- non western time. --- nonfiction. --- sense of time. --- standard time. --- technological innovations. --- technology. --- temporality. --- time deviations. --- timekeeping practices. --- transportation.