Constructing Leisure: Historical and Philosophical Debates

✍ Scribed by Karl Spracklen

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 233
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book looks back at the meaning and purpose of leisure in the past. But this is not a simple social history of leisure. It is not enough to write a history of leisure on its own - in fact, it is impossible without engaging in the debate about what counts as leisure (in the present and in the past). Writing a history of leisure, then, entails writing a philosophy of leisure: and any history needs to be a philosophical history as well. That is the purpose of this book. It provides an account of leisure through historical time, how leisure was constructed and understood by historical actors, how communicative reason and free will interacted with instrumentality at different times, how historians have reconstructed past leisure through historiography, and finally, how writers have perceived the meaning and purpose of leisure in alternative histories. Providing a sweeping overview of the field, Karl Spracklen charts how the concept of leisure was understood in Ancient history, through to modern times, and looks at leisure in different societies and cultures including Byzantium and Asian civilizations, as well as looking at leisure and Islam. Spracklen concludes with a chapter on future histories of leisure.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Halftitle......Page 2
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 9
1. Introduction......Page 10
2. Philosophy of Leisure......Page 23
3. Leisure and Human Nature......Page 42
4. Leisure in Classical History......Page 59
5. Leisure, Islam and Byzantium......Page 76
6. Leisure in the Middle Ages......Page 93
7. Leisure in Japan, China and India......Page 111
8. Early Modern Leisure......Page 130
9. Leisure in Modernity......Page 149
10. Leisure in Historiography......Page 166
11. Future Histories of Leisure......Page 184
12. Conclusions......Page 202
References......Page 208
Index......Page 231