The Global Transformation of Time, 1870–1950. By Vanessa Ogle (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2015) 279 pp. $39.95 cloth

Ogle’s The Global Transformation of Time, 1870–1950 relies on the empirical historical method in its research design and interpretation of sources. Most of the book follows a model of comparative history, whereby different regional and national histories are contrasted, but at times the narrative addresses transnational histories, such as the League of Nations’ attempt at calendar reform. Ogle examines the role of time measurement in globalization, seeking information in the newspapers of Germany, Mumbai, and Beirut; in the published papers of scientific and international organizations; in the works of Muslim scholars and Indian nationalists; and, most importantly, in the administrative and official papers of Germany and its colonies, Great Britain and its empire, and Ottoman Syria. She argues that after 1870, the various proposals and fiats that were meant to unify clock and calendar time ironically tended instead to underscore the difference between here and there—for instance, between Mumbai’s local...