The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week - Paperback

by Eviatar Zerubavel (Author)

"Days, months, and years were given to us by nature, but we invented the week for ourselves. There is nothing inevitable about a seven-day cycle, or about any other kind of week; it represents an arbitrary rhythm imposed on our activities, unrelated to anything in the natural order. But where the week exists--and there have been many cultures where it doesn't--it is so deeply embedded in our experience that we hardly ever question its rightness, or think of it as an artificial convention; for most of us it is a matter of 'second nature.'

Author Biography

Eviatar Zerubavel is professor of sociology at Rutgers University. His books include Hidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life and Patterns of Time in Hospital Life: A Sociological Perspective.