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Start giftingThe Week
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Learn moreWe take the seven-day week for granted, rarely asking what anchors it or what it does to us. Yet weeks are not dictated by the natural order. They are, in fact, an artificial construction of the modern world. With meticulous archival research that draws on a wide array of sources—including newspapers, restaurant menus, theater schedules, marriage records, school curricula, folklore, housekeeping guides, courtroom testimony, and diaries—David Henkin reveals how our current devotion to weekly rhythms emerged in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century. Reconstructing how weekly patterns have insinuated themselves into the social practices and mental habits of Americans, Henkin argues that the week is more than just a regimen of rest days or breaks from work: it’s a dominant organizational principle of modern society. Ultimately, the seven-day week shapes our understanding and experience of time.
David M. Henkin is the Margaret Byrne Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. The author of several books, including The Postal Age, City Reading, and Becoming America: A History for the 21st Century (with Rebecca McLennan), he splits his time between San Francisco and Bozeman, Montana.
Pete Cross is an award-winning audiobook narrator and engineer who earned his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. A multiple Earphones Awards winner and Audie finalist, he was nominated for a SOVAS award for his narration of Moby Dick and received the 2022 Audie Award for Ryan La Sala’s Be Dazzled and the 2023 Odyssey Award for Ryan La Sala’s The Honeys.