A Geography Of Time: On Tempo, Culture, and the Pace Of Life [Paperback]

The concepts are easy to absorb, and the subject is well-researched and documented. I have no doubt that Levine's work is strong. Some of the work involves providing evidence for well-known concepts, such as bigger cities have a faster pace than smaller cities. Interesting correlations are drawn between the pace of a location and the accuracy of it's timepieces. I found the concept of being able to train oneself to elongate and condense time perception to be particularly interesting, such as in the case of a martial artist who moves fast by forcing an opponent to appear to move slow. Other interesting tidbits include the "contradiction of Japan," which shows that an ultra-fast paced life can be balanced out with cultural rules to prevent aggression, and how a slow-paced city is not necessarily kinder than a fast-paced city.

The reason why "A Geography of Time" is only almost-excellent is due to the author's skills as a writer. Ideas are not presented in a structured manner, information is redundantly repeated and personal opinions are freely mixed with research and evidence. Some difficult concepts, such as Einstein's time dilatation in Special Relativity are introduced as window dressing for what amounts to a sociological subject. A brief history of the introduction of clocks in America is included. The last chapter is almost a "self help" opinion piece by the author, on how to use knowledge of time to greatest advantage.

All in all, while the research is interesting and the concepts are worth reading, the book would have benefited from a tighter focus on the author's part. The book wander's lazily from concept to concept, and hurts the material overall. All in all, worth reading and enjoyable, but falling just short of the mark.

I am told that his research is sound, but haven't reviewed it personally past abstracts. He continues his research presently from CSU Fresno. The ideas and annecdotes are interesting, and since the orignal version, Levine has continued to publish research on this subject. As a book to introduce someone to issues of time and culture in a semi-structured way, this is not bad.

Unfortunately, there is something a little ... annoying about the tone in the book, and sadly, from what I can tell by other communications, it comes directly from the author. When telling a story, he's engaged and interested (in writing and otherwise). When the scholarship is the issue, we get less responsiveness, and more rushed pithiness, which is a shame, really. One just can't escape the sense of judgment sometimes in the text.

If there is an update to the text from the original version, let us hope he has expanded some of his original studies to concentrate less on California - a huge portion of his population in the studies in the book - and include other place, both in and outside the USA.

If you have an interest in time, psychology, social behaviour, or some combination of the above, it's not an awful read.