François Hartog is a professor emeritus at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. His books in English include Regimes of Historicity: Presentism and Experiences of Time (Columbia, 2015) and The Mirror of Herodotus: The Representation of the Other in the Writing of History (1988). S. R. Gilbert is a translator living in San Francisco.
With characteristic elegance, wit, and erudition, Hartog, the master thinker of historical time, offers a panoramic view of the past to show how a temporal order (re)fashioned by Christianity endures to this day and shapes our crisis-ridden sense of the present. This is a longue-duree perspective on the Anthropocene that only someone with Hartog's learning and brilliance could have provided. An indispensable guide to the present. -- Dipesh Chakrabarty, author of <i>Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference</i> Chronos is a magisterial book, breathtaking in scope and precision. I cannot think of another historian who could have written this book in this way. Francois Hartog uniquely possesses the intellectual expertise and range to lead the reader through a sweeping history of the concept of time in the West, beginning with the Greeks in antiquity and ending with our current periodization of the Anthropocene. It is an important work on one of the most pressing topics of our day. -- Ethan Kleinberg, author of <i>Haunting History: For a Deconstructive Approach to the Past</i> This book, masterfully translated by S. R. Gilbert, will undoubtedly become a classic. A Christian revolution in time led from Greek Chronos, to Augustine's self, to modern change, and to the Anthropocene. Beautifully written, this is a book for everyone who wants to know why our time is what it is. -- Nitzan Lebovic, Apter Chair of Holocaust Studies and Ethical Values, Lehigh University In this brilliant, original, and profound book, Francois Hartog takes further his critical analyses of the sources and legacies of modern Western assumptions about time. He brings to light their urgent relevance to us today as we face challenges such as climate change, the Anthropocene, and potential global geopolitical catastrophe. -- Sir Geoffrey Lloyd, University of Cambridge Magisterial yet accessible, Chronos can make the rare claim to encompass all of recorded time in a relatively slim 300-odd pages. * New York Sun *