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Man and Time
Surveys the many theories, philosophies and scientific discoveries about time that have arisen over the years
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1964
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267 people want to read
About the author
J.B. Priestley
463 books288 followersJohn Boynton Priestley was an English writer. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and after schooling he worked for a time in the local wool trade. Following the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Priestley joined the British Army, and was sent to France - in 1915 taking part in the Battle of Loos. After being wounded in 1917 Priestley returned to England for six months; then, after going back to the Western Front he suffered the consequences of a German gas attack, and, treated at Rouen, he was declared unfit for active service and was transferred to the Entertainers Section of the British Army.
When Priestley left the army he studied at Cambridge University, where he completed a degree in Modern History and Political Science. Subsequently he found work as theatre reviewer with the Daily News, and also contributed to the Spectator, the Challenge and Nineteenth Century. His earliest books included The English Comic Characters (1925), The English Novel (1927), and English Humour (1928). His breakthrough came with the immensely popular novel The Good Companions, published in 1929, and Angel Pavement followed in 1930. He emerged, too, as a successful dramatist with such plays as Dangerous Corner (1932), Time and the Conways (1937), When We Are Married (1938) and An Inspector Calls (1947).
The publication of English Journey in 1934 emphasised Priestley's concern for social problems and the welfare of ordinary people.
During the Second World War Priestley became a popular and influential broadcaster with his famous Postscripts that followed the nine o'clock news BBC Radio on Sunday evenings. Starting on 5th June 1940, Priestley built up such a following that after a few months it was estimated that around 40 per cent of the adult population in Britain was listening to the programme.
Some members of the Conservative Party, including Winston Churchill, expressed concern that Priestley might be expressing left-wing views on the programme, and, to his dismay, Priestley was dropped after his talk on 20th October 1940.
After the war Priestley continued his writing, and his work invariably provoked thought, and his views were always expressed in his blunt Yorkshire style.
His prolific output continued right up to his final years, and to the end he remained the great literary all-rounder. His favourite among his books was for many years the novel Bright Day, though he later said he had come to prefer The Image Men.
It should not be overlooked that Priestley was an outstanding essayist, and many of his short pieces best capture his passions and his great talent and his mastery of the English language. He set a fine example for any would-be author.
When Priestley left the army he studied at Cambridge University, where he completed a degree in Modern History and Political Science. Subsequently he found work as theatre reviewer with the Daily News, and also contributed to the Spectator, the Challenge and Nineteenth Century. His earliest books included The English Comic Characters (1925), The English Novel (1927), and English Humour (1928). His breakthrough came with the immensely popular novel The Good Companions, published in 1929, and Angel Pavement followed in 1930. He emerged, too, as a successful dramatist with such plays as Dangerous Corner (1932), Time and the Conways (1937), When We Are Married (1938) and An Inspector Calls (1947).
The publication of English Journey in 1934 emphasised Priestley's concern for social problems and the welfare of ordinary people.
During the Second World War Priestley became a popular and influential broadcaster with his famous Postscripts that followed the nine o'clock news BBC Radio on Sunday evenings. Starting on 5th June 1940, Priestley built up such a following that after a few months it was estimated that around 40 per cent of the adult population in Britain was listening to the programme.
Some members of the Conservative Party, including Winston Churchill, expressed concern that Priestley might be expressing left-wing views on the programme, and, to his dismay, Priestley was dropped after his talk on 20th October 1940.
After the war Priestley continued his writing, and his work invariably provoked thought, and his views were always expressed in his blunt Yorkshire style.
His prolific output continued right up to his final years, and to the end he remained the great literary all-rounder. His favourite among his books was for many years the novel Bright Day, though he later said he had come to prefer The Image Men.
It should not be overlooked that Priestley was an outstanding essayist, and many of his short pieces best capture his passions and his great talent and his mastery of the English language. He set a fine example for any would-be author.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 16, 2023
The nature of time is a complicated subject. Priestley does an admirable job in the three sections of his book.The Approach examines how we measure time looking back on history Egyptian, Roman influences and how a Pope invented our current calendar and the 365 days.
The second part looks at The Ideas of Time with chapters on Time and Ancient Man, Time, History, and Eternity. Finishing with This Age. Primitive Man, Mesopotamia and Egypt, Greek and Roman with explanations of how we became fixated on chronological time.
The third and final section gives examples and speculations based on the author’s experiences and from letters he received and research. He looks at dreams and their possible meanings and the works of Dunne and serialism, the Esoteric school finishing with Priestley’s Time one, Time two and Time three theory.
Fascinating book and makes you question your perception of time.
The second part looks at The Ideas of Time with chapters on Time and Ancient Man, Time, History, and Eternity. Finishing with This Age. Primitive Man, Mesopotamia and Egypt, Greek and Roman with explanations of how we became fixated on chronological time.
The third and final section gives examples and speculations based on the author’s experiences and from letters he received and research. He looks at dreams and their possible meanings and the works of Dunne and serialism, the Esoteric school finishing with Priestley’s Time one, Time two and Time three theory.
Fascinating book and makes you question your perception of time.
March 1, 2016
In Man and Time, the erudite, entertaining, and occasionally ostentatious J. B. Priestley takes us on a grand tour through, you guessed it, Time—and it’s a fun adventure indeed. Priestley, a self-confessed “Time-haunted man”—you’ll have to figure out for yourself what that means, since he offers no explanation—was a writer of fiction and a dramatist by trade, so he takes a bit of an excursion here as he offers us his take on Time.
The book covers a broad range of time-related topics, including an interesting account of the development of clocks and calendars, man’s relation to time through history, and the fascinating subject of prevision and multiple time dimensions. Priestley concludes with an examination of the ideas of J.W. Dunne—a prominent time theorist in his day—as well as an account of his own personal theories of Time. While Priestley is no scientist and doesn’t pretend to be, he explores these topics in depth and is quite readable, lending a thoughtful and philosophical perspective as our guide.
One of the more enjoyable parts of the book is Priestley’s assessment of precognition and the FIP (future-influencing-present) effect. To explore these subjects he examines a dozen or so letters taken from a huge pile of mail he received while writing the book. Penned by ordinary people from all walks of life, the letters detail personal experiences with Time, placing a special emphasis on precognitive dreams. For those interested in precognition and FIP, this section is particularly noteworthy.
In spite of the book’s fascinating subject matter, Priestley does lose the thread occasionally, going off on one tangent or another and straying from our subject of Time. But even he seems to be aware of his digressions and soon gets things back on track. Another minor fault is that throughout the book Priestley is at pains to apologize for not having enough space to include more examples of this or that idea, more quotes from this or that book, etc. Ironically, if he had just cut out his many apologies he probably would have had room to include some of the very things he felt he was unable to squeeze in.
One place he could have done some pruning is in his lengthy discussion of J.W. Dunne whose theories Priestley pretty much dismantles anyway. Having read Dunne’s An Experiment with Time, I feel Priestley makes the same mistake as Dunne—namely, getting bogged down in the particulars of Serialism, which is a fairly complicated and as such not very engrossing theory of Time. The emphasis on Dunne is especially unfortunate when you consider that Priestley had to condense his letters/precognition section in the interest of brevity. Based on the massive volume of correspondence he received, who knows how many interesting letters about precognition and FIP were omitted to make room for Dunne?
Still, for the most part Man and Time is an enjoyable read and even quite fascinating in places—after all, what could be a more mesmerizing task than seeking to uncover the true nature of Time? If you are of a similar mind—and if you have the least suspicion that you might be Time-haunted, as was Mr. Priestley—then reading Man and Time will no doubt make for a worthwhile journey.
The book covers a broad range of time-related topics, including an interesting account of the development of clocks and calendars, man’s relation to time through history, and the fascinating subject of prevision and multiple time dimensions. Priestley concludes with an examination of the ideas of J.W. Dunne—a prominent time theorist in his day—as well as an account of his own personal theories of Time. While Priestley is no scientist and doesn’t pretend to be, he explores these topics in depth and is quite readable, lending a thoughtful and philosophical perspective as our guide.
One of the more enjoyable parts of the book is Priestley’s assessment of precognition and the FIP (future-influencing-present) effect. To explore these subjects he examines a dozen or so letters taken from a huge pile of mail he received while writing the book. Penned by ordinary people from all walks of life, the letters detail personal experiences with Time, placing a special emphasis on precognitive dreams. For those interested in precognition and FIP, this section is particularly noteworthy.
In spite of the book’s fascinating subject matter, Priestley does lose the thread occasionally, going off on one tangent or another and straying from our subject of Time. But even he seems to be aware of his digressions and soon gets things back on track. Another minor fault is that throughout the book Priestley is at pains to apologize for not having enough space to include more examples of this or that idea, more quotes from this or that book, etc. Ironically, if he had just cut out his many apologies he probably would have had room to include some of the very things he felt he was unable to squeeze in.
One place he could have done some pruning is in his lengthy discussion of J.W. Dunne whose theories Priestley pretty much dismantles anyway. Having read Dunne’s An Experiment with Time, I feel Priestley makes the same mistake as Dunne—namely, getting bogged down in the particulars of Serialism, which is a fairly complicated and as such not very engrossing theory of Time. The emphasis on Dunne is especially unfortunate when you consider that Priestley had to condense his letters/precognition section in the interest of brevity. Based on the massive volume of correspondence he received, who knows how many interesting letters about precognition and FIP were omitted to make room for Dunne?
Still, for the most part Man and Time is an enjoyable read and even quite fascinating in places—after all, what could be a more mesmerizing task than seeking to uncover the true nature of Time? If you are of a similar mind—and if you have the least suspicion that you might be Time-haunted, as was Mr. Priestley—then reading Man and Time will no doubt make for a worthwhile journey.
June 27, 2023
I've never given much thought to the idea of 'Time' before reading this book. For me, it has always been something trivial, something which is always in the background, but never worth attending to. This has surely changed.
Priestley, in his magnus opum, aims to unravel the mystery of time from multiple perspectives. The foundation of his arguments lies on the notion that our common-sensical idea of the objective Time - linearly ticking away - is glaringly inadequate to account for various psychological phenomenon. He gives an account of the various belief systems about time across cultures - such as Ancient India, the Maya etc., how they percieved time psychologically and how it differed from us moderners. The crux of his ideas being that the time in the ancient cultures was something more than the linear time like we see it. They did not lay emphasis on fine distinctions 'of time' such as months, weeks, hours etc. but rather on recursions 'in time'. There was an element of 'eternal time' in their consciousness. He believes that this incomplete relationship with time, where the man is always trying to catch the fleeting future and never is fully present in the eternal now, is the cause of anxieties of the modern man (this surely has some Buddhist undertones).
The section which I enjoyed the most was of the scinetific theories of time. To my pleasant surprise, Einstein's theory of Relativity was presented in an interesting and digestible way and one can understand how the objective time (as measured by a clock) can have different psychological experiences for observers located at different points in space. This not only completed the loop of objective and subjective time, but also laid some scientific grounding for different time theories which he discussed in the next few chapters.
The later sections of this book are heavily influenced from the work of time theorists such as Gurdijieff, Ouspensky, Jung and some others from eastern spiritualist traditions. Although, the idea of FIP(Future information influencing present) seems theoretically interesting, the evidence provided for such occurences were anecdotal reports of pre-cognitive dreams of numerous people. Like most other work in psychoanalysis, this always is a bit difficult for a rationally-tempered mind to take seriously.
Ouspensky's multi-dimensional theory of time is perhaps the single most brilliant idea coming out of this book, which would surely require further readings. Overall, it is a glorious book to read, filled with awe-inspiring images and a touch of subjective bareness of one of the most cherished British writers.
Priestley, in his magnus opum, aims to unravel the mystery of time from multiple perspectives. The foundation of his arguments lies on the notion that our common-sensical idea of the objective Time - linearly ticking away - is glaringly inadequate to account for various psychological phenomenon. He gives an account of the various belief systems about time across cultures - such as Ancient India, the Maya etc., how they percieved time psychologically and how it differed from us moderners. The crux of his ideas being that the time in the ancient cultures was something more than the linear time like we see it. They did not lay emphasis on fine distinctions 'of time' such as months, weeks, hours etc. but rather on recursions 'in time'. There was an element of 'eternal time' in their consciousness. He believes that this incomplete relationship with time, where the man is always trying to catch the fleeting future and never is fully present in the eternal now, is the cause of anxieties of the modern man (this surely has some Buddhist undertones).
The section which I enjoyed the most was of the scinetific theories of time. To my pleasant surprise, Einstein's theory of Relativity was presented in an interesting and digestible way and one can understand how the objective time (as measured by a clock) can have different psychological experiences for observers located at different points in space. This not only completed the loop of objective and subjective time, but also laid some scientific grounding for different time theories which he discussed in the next few chapters.
The later sections of this book are heavily influenced from the work of time theorists such as Gurdijieff, Ouspensky, Jung and some others from eastern spiritualist traditions. Although, the idea of FIP(Future information influencing present) seems theoretically interesting, the evidence provided for such occurences were anecdotal reports of pre-cognitive dreams of numerous people. Like most other work in psychoanalysis, this always is a bit difficult for a rationally-tempered mind to take seriously.
Ouspensky's multi-dimensional theory of time is perhaps the single most brilliant idea coming out of this book, which would surely require further readings. Overall, it is a glorious book to read, filled with awe-inspiring images and a touch of subjective bareness of one of the most cherished British writers.
March 23, 2013
I wish I had more time to write a review about Priestley's discourse on humankind's perceptions on time.
February 16, 2024
Life-changing.
January 18, 2024
As somebody who’s always been baffled, frustrated and terrified by the unrelenting speed and reality of time as well as being extremely interested in the power of dreams to travel through it, this was a thoroughly enjoyable, fascinating and enlightening read, filled with erudition, wit, unique perspectives and meaningful conclusions, lyrically expressed with a mastery of the English language. I especially loved the letters from people that he shares and analyzes regarding incredible dream experiences of the future and ESP. The pictures are a fantastic addition as well. This book is truly a gem!
January 12, 2025
An overarching personal essay, this text weaves elements of history, philosophy, and physics into an individual account of civilization's perception of time passage. Priestley, who boasts an eclectic cache of publications, dives into the influence of time across numerous civilizations, reviews mechanisms of time keeping dating back to antiquity, and immerses the reader into a thorough discussion of precognition.
Although dated (1964), this essay represents an immersive account of scientific pursuits of time for its day and serves as a worthwhile, albeit antiquated, read for those interested in the subject matter.
Although dated (1964), this essay represents an immersive account of scientific pursuits of time for its day and serves as a worthwhile, albeit antiquated, read for those interested in the subject matter.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews