Praise for At Day’s Close

A Discover Magazine Top Science Book of the Year, 2005
An Observer Book of the Year, 2005

“Professor Ekirch has produced a book of exceptional range and originality. His investigation of nocturnes in pre-modern civilization spans literature and social history, psychology and the history of thought. This is a pioneering achievement of a rare order. It truly casts light on absolutely vital spheres of darkness.”

—George Steiner

“What happened at night in times past? Who did what at night? How did people cope with darkness and the perils of violence and fire? What were the rhythms of sleep and the forms of nighttime sociability and intimacy? Ekirch illuminates the world of darkness in early modern Europe and America with clarity and rich documentation. At Day’s Close is the result of years of study, and it’s a revelation.”

—Bernard Bailyn, Harvard University,
Adams University Professor Emeritus

“For Ekirch, the night has been a hubbub of activity, a sequence of comings and goings, a bustling fiefdom with its own distinct customs and rituals. . . . To a remarkable degree, he has reclaimed that portion of the circadian cycle which historians have traditionally neglected. Ekirch has emptied night’s pockets, and laid the contents out before us. . . . At Day’s Close serves to remind us of night’s ancient mystery.”

—Arthur Krystal, The New Yorker

“An enthralling anthropology of the shadow realms of Western Europe from the late Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. . . . [Ekirch] weaves his own Bayeux tapestry, but instead of stories of warrior bishops and court dwarfs, he wants to tell us about privacy and police power, torture and summary courts, the physiology of sleep, the sociology of prostitution, and political and religious heresies. . . . An informed and passionate case against too much artificial light.”

—John Leonard, Harper’s

“A book that anybody with any imagination will find fascinating, but one that is the mirror image of conventional popular history. . . . Wonderful, for Ekirch spares no pains to rediscover the lost world of the dark. . . . [It is] a book that can’t be summarized but must be experienced.”

—David Wootton, London Review of Books

“Absorbing . . . fascinating. . . . [Ekirch] has plundered an extraordinary range of cross-cultural sources for his material, and he tells us about everything from witches to firefighting, architecture to domestic violence. . . . [A] monumental study.”

—Terry Eagleton, The Nation

“Engrossing, leisurely paced, and richly researched. . . . He provides fascinating insight into nocturnal labor. . . . A rich weave of citation and archival evidence, Ekirch’s narrative is rooted in the material realities of the past, evoking a bygone world of extreme physicality and pre-industrial survival stratagems.”

—Publishers Weekly

“A tour de force. Throwing shafts of light onto nocturnal life—its dangers, intimacies, rituals, rhythms, laboring patterns, class affiliations, and gradual transformation—reveals a whole new world only dimly seen before. Thanks to this pathbreaking and compelling work, pre-industrial nighttime now has a 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 . . . has been getting some of the most enthusiastic reviews of the year. This is the sort of life’s work that you wish every book could be. . . . The result is a vivid account, rich in surprising anecdote. . . . [It is] the sort of book that, paradoxically, brings the past closer by showing how radically different it was from our own time. You’ll never look at nighttime the same way once you’ve read it.”

—Tom Nissley, senior editor, Amazon.com

“This innovative, scholarly book offers a fresh perspective on early modern Europe. . . . Gracefully written and richly illustrated.”

—S. Bailey, Choice

“A can’t-put-down volume. . . . Ekirch succeeds marvelously.”

—Jackie Loohauis, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“[Ekirch] carries us into the night, both literally and metaphorically. . . . A truly valuable book.”

—Jane Davis, Decatur Daily

“At Day’s Close is not only distinct (one is hard-pressed to think of another book like it) but also consistently entertaining. . . . An elegy for times past.”

—Bill Eichenberger, Columbus Dispatch

“Rigorously researched. . . . An impressively original book. Ekirch’s primary achievement here is in giving the distinct culture of night its first real history, and cataloging what strange creatures we become after dark.”

—Brad Quinn, Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo)

“Rhythmic and often poetic prose. . . . A fascinating book. . . . We have forgotten what that dark reign was like, but At Day’s Close does a marvelous job of bringing it back to life for us.”

—Andrew Hudgins, Raleigh News & Observer

“Now and then a book can be called amazing. Here is such a book.”

—Ron Kirbyson, Winnipeg Free Press Review