Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History
by E.G.Richards
Published by Oxford University
Hardback edition, first printing, October 1998
Hardback edition, second printing, February 1999
Paperback edition, September 1999
My book is a popular account of the history, use and construction of the calendars of the world.
The book includes simple algorithms for calculating the day of the week of any date, for interconverting dates in a variety of calendars and for calculating the date of Easter. They are all suitable for use with a hand calculator, or if you prefer, you can write a simple computer program which uses them.
Contents
Part
I The Calendar in Theory
1 The Calendar
2 The Astronomical Background
3 Time and the Clock
4 Writing and Libraries
5 Numbers and Arithmetic
6 The Variety of Calendars
7 The Reform of the Calendar
Part II The
Calendars of the World
8 Introduction
9 Prehistoric calendars
10 The calendars of
11 The Egyptian calendar
12 The calendars of
13 The calendars of
14 The Mayan and Aztec calendars
15 Four European calendars
16 The Roman and Julian calendars
17 The Jewish calendar
18 The Islamic and Bahá’i calendars
19 The Gregorian calendar
20 The French Republican calendar
21 `The week
Part III
Calendar Conversions
22 Calendar conversions
23 Mathematical notes
24 To calculate the day of the week
25 The conversion of regular calendars
26 The Jewish calendar
27 The Mayan calendar
Part
IV Easter
28 A short history of Easter
29 The date of Easter Sunday
30 A book of hours
Appendices
I Astronomical constants
II The names of the days of the week
III The names of the days of the year in the French Republican calendar
Glossary
Further
April 8, 20082