The colonisation of time : ritual, routine and resistance in the British Empire /Giordano Nanni.

This book is a highly original and long overdue examination of the ways that western-European and specifically British concepts and rituals of time were imposed on other cultures as a fundamental component of colonisation during the nineteenth century. Based on a wealth of primary sources and a comparative analysis of two British settler-colonies - Victoria, Australia, and the Cape Colony, South Africa - it explores the intimate relationship between the colonisation of time and the conquest of land. It documents the remarkable story behind the rise to global dominance of western-time - from the clock to the seven-day week - revealing its status as one of the most enduring, pervasive and taken-for-granted legacies of colonialism in today's world.--From the publisher.