Chapter 5, Time and History Summary and Analysis

Chapter 5 presents theses 125 through 146. Chapter 5 begins with a brief quote taken from William Shakespeare's Henry IV. The chapter considers the interplay between the passage of time and the creation of history. Note that the topic of spectacular time is considered in Chapter 6. Chapter 5 presents a dual interpretation of time—that of cyclical time and that of irreversible time. Cyclical time is conceptualized as a repeating cycle of events spaced in time as experienced by nomadic peoples—their experiences are repetitive on at least an annual basis, and because of this events are 'recoverable' inasmuch as they have happened before and will happen again. Divorced of repetitive geography and seasonal repetitions, modern man experiences what he perceives as irreversible time—events do not cycle and do not repeat, except in trivial ways. The...