Free At Day's Close: Night in Times Past by A. Roger Ekirch Page B

history.”
    —Philip Morgan, Harry C. Black Professor of History,
Johns Hopkins University
    “Delightful details fill Ekirch’s narrative of the night.”
    — Discover
    “To us today, nightfall is a time to turn on the lights. But of course it was not always so. Ekirch’s richly researched and entertaining study, At Day’s Close, reclaims for history the half of past lives that was lived at night: in partial or total darkness, at work and at play, in stillness and in motion, in solitude or in shared reflection. Perfect reading for insomniacs and star-gazers alike.”
    —Jonathan Spence, Sterling Professor of History, Yale University
    “Night and day Ekirch’s history of darkness is the one—massive, original, and completely enlightening.”
    —Steven Ozment, McLean Professor of Ancient
and Modern History, Harvard University
    “A fresh and thought-provoking cultural inquiry. . . . Maintaining throughout an infectious sense of wonder, Ekirch ignites the reader’s imagination. . . . [He] vividly evokes the old magic of true night.”
    —Donna Seaman, Booklist , starred review
    “A wonderfully monomaniacal undertaking: a study of how night affected (mainly) European societies before the advent of street and, in certain instances, domestic lighting. Ekirch is folklorist, criminologist, psychologist. The mass of graphic detail is gripping.”
    —Jonathan Meades, The Observer
    “ At Day’s Close is uncommonly welcome, for it covers ground that just about all others have ignored. . . . [Ekirch] writes exceptionally well. . . . The range of his research is both broad and deep.”
    —Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
    “ At Day’s Close is the best sort of bottom-up history, taking nighttime—half of existence—and rendering it new and strange and full of marvels.”
    —Fritz Lanham, Houston Chronicle
    “Wise and compendious. . . . Ekirch’s command of the material is impressive. . . . It truly is a labor of love.”
    —Ian Pindar, The Guardian
    “A triumph of social history. Almost every page contains something to surprise the reader. . . . The great achievement of At Day’s Close is precisely its invasion of privacy: it shines a torch through the curtains of our ancestors and gives us a glimpse of them at their most vulnerable. Watching them blink back is one of the most enjoyable literary experiences of the year.”
    —Damian Thompson, Mail on Sunday
    “A magisterial history of nighttime.”
    —Jay Walljasper, Ode Magazine
    “Night-time has been curiously ignored by social historians. This fine book, the fruit of 20 years’ diurnal and nocturnal work by an American professor of history, corrects that lack. . . . Entertaining and informative.”
    —Ross Leckie, Sunday Times
    “A glorious book. . . . Captivating.”
    — De Morgen (Brussels)
    “A fascinating panorama of social history.”
    — Wirtschaftsblatt (Vienna)
    “In his fascinating survey of the dark hours of the pre-industrial era, A. Roger Ekirch takes us deep into an age when the very lack of light threw life into confusion. . . . Ekirch’s profound understanding of the period provides such enlightening details. . . . This engrossing book illuminates the darker recesses of the past.”
    —Philip Hoare, Sunday Telegraph
    “Meticulously researched. . . . At Day’s Close is a splendid book. . . . [It is] great entertainment, and to social historians it will be of immense value.”
    —Sir Patrick Moore, Times Higher Education Supplement
    “A vivid panorama of nighttime customs in city and country, among peasants and courtiers. . . . At Day’s Close relentlessly makes clear how much our comforts separate us from previous generations—and how much our conquest of night has cost us in fellowship and imagination. . . . Stands with other pioneering scholarship on natural phenomena . . . that has taught us how much culture needs nature, perhaps more than the other way around.”
    —William Howarth, Preservation
    “ At Day’s Close .