posted 07-25-99 03:48 PM ET        

Account of the different influences - cultural and scientific - that lead up to most of the world accepting the Gregorian calendar as the method of recording dates.

Written well: I assume the writer is from the United States, but he does not display any of the usual bias pro-Western ideas or pro/anti religion that I would have expected (Stephen Jay Gould has a lot to answer for).

A couple of key ideas stick in the mind from this work. 1) I didn't realize that it was only in the 1940s that the Gregorian calendar was accepted as the standard, although there are still some pockets of resistance amongst Orthodox Christian movements. 2) The earliest recorded date (in Egypt) equates to 4241 BC. Either Archbishop Ussher was wrong with his 4004 BC, or God created the Egyptians with a civilization around them.

The book took me a couple of weeks to read, so it's not totally enthralling, but it is very worthwhile and I would wholeheartedly recommend it.