I really enjoyed this argument against Ekirch, and I agree more with it than the first article we read. I see the correlation and causation more in this. I also found this easier to read and less dense. His thesis statement was so clear and precise, that I found it easier to follow and therefore more interesting. His commentary of Ekirch's paper is interesting where he says in the thesis "As compelling and thorough as Ekirch's research is, I would Like to suggest that the history of modern sleep is not one of slow evolutionary change, but rather of an abrupt transformation... advances in lighting technology were a response to this change rather than a primary cause, Caffeine, books, a shift in the perception of time, and a concomitant shift in the valuation of sleep, created a demand for better nocturnal lighting"(135). This quote was so interesting, that sleep changed on the account of caffeine, which was used to suppress sleep in order to get more done. That caffeine demanded better lighting at night and changed the history of sleep forever. Also I thought the biblical ties throughout the piece were interesting. How the break between the two sleep was the "nighty resurrection" and the "first sleep" was compared to man before Christ, and the "second sleep" was compared to man after sleep. It is amazing to think about how faith based sleep was back then versus now. People don't near as much ponder the religious aspect of sleep. It was mentioned that sleep was "shaking hands with God" (130). I don't realize how much I take for granted just sleeping in terms of my faith. This piece really put many things in perspective for me.
Sources:
Ekirch, A. Roger. “Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-industrial Slumber in the British Isles.” The American Historical Review 106, no. 2 (2001): 343-386. JSTOR. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2651611>.
Schmidt, Roger. “Caffeine and the Coming of the Enlightenment.” Raritan 23.1 (2003): 129-49. EBSCO, 2003. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.
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