I guess you could say I'm looking for... a brief history of time. rimshot

Joking aside, how old is our current system of measuring time? Were there ancient timekeeping devices with the level of precision needed to continuously track at the level of minutes or seconds, and if so, what system did the societies who engineered those devices use to define and describe units of time? Where there ever conflicting systems of measurement in competition for widespread acceptance? I've heard about the metric clock of the French revolution, but my understanding is that basically no one ever took that seriously. Were there ever any real alternative contenders? What are some (if any), other ways that humans have conceptualized time over our history?

Lookimg for clarification as a non-historian:

Listening to AskHistorians Podcast #108, around 25 minutes in the discussion goes to the lack of historians currently looking at class in american history generally, and antebellum South specifically. The guest specifically mentions Marxism as out of vogue. She also mention that many of the youngest historians are both from the south, and the most leftist, so there is hope for more class discussion in the future.

Did this comment mean to imply that one must be leftist to study class issues? Or does it mean that you must be leftist to study history applying Marxist theory? If the former, doesnt that necessarily introduce bias? If the latter doesnt that discredit Marxism? I'm picturing an engineer throwing out a bridge design calculation because of political associations. Obviously doesn't make sense there.

Also, are there not non-Marxist ways to conceptualize class struggle to also use for a more complete picture?

I know that the Soviets produced most of their own weapons and ammo, tanks and artillery, but I also know that the Allies, specifically America imported a lot of food while Ukraine was under Nazi occupation.

At the same time, the argument that the Soviets were underequipped idiot conscripts is often used by neo-Nazis who wish to discredit the Soviet war effort.

I am looking for works that are by authors like Plutarch, Herodotus, Tacitus, etc.

I have heard of and/or have familiarity with the above authors, but I seek more like this that are crucial to ancient history. Also, if anyone can tell me what order these works should be read in, that would be great.

Also, was it ever used by Vietnamese Pro-Western parties or organizations after the war? Does it carry any connotation today? Also, was the American flag made illegal?

I'm working with some old atlases, and one of them (Tunison's Peerless Universal Atlas of the World, published in 1896) has a comparison chart of the populations of different religions. The biggest, at 500,000,000 million, is 'Pagans etc.' What would that mean to a contemporary reader?

(The other religions, for reference: Buddhists, Mohammedans, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Greek Christian, and Jews.)

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