Calendar Reform and Occupation Politics

Historians of science who have read The Way and the Word will be aware that, although its theme was comparative, its largest point had to do with method. It demonstrated a general approach to historical study that makes sense of the past in ways that narrower approaches have failed to do. Specialists tend to look at computational techniques and the social relations of mathematicians as distinct areas of endeavor that may or may not be connected. Putting something in context is, as authors often say, a good thing, but doing so is supposed to be a voluntary matter of connecting two things that exist quite separately.