Roger Ekirch

{{Short description|American historian (born 1950)}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2022}}

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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1950|2|6}}

| birth_place = Washington, D.C., U.S.

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| discipline = Historian

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| workplaces = Virginia Tech

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Arthur Roger Ekirch (born February 6, 1950) is University Distinguished Professor of history at Virginia Tech in the United States.{{cite web|url=http://www.history.vt.edu/Ekirch/ |title=A. Roger Ekirch |publisher=Department of History, Virginia Tech |website=History.vt.edu |access-date=2017-08-08}} He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1998.

The son of intellectual historian Arthur A. Ekirch Jr. and Dorothy Gustafson,{{Cite web |title=Arthur A. Ekirch Jr. (1915-2000) {{!}} Perspectives on History {{!}} AHA |url=https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/may-2000/in-memoriam-arthur-a-ekirch-jr |access-date=2022-11-07 |website=www.historians.org}} Roger Ekirch is internationally known for his pioneering research into pre-industrial sleeping patterns that was first published in "Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-Industrial Slumber in the British Isles"{{cite web|url=http://www.history.vt.edu/Ekirch/sleepcommentary.html |title="Sleep We Have Lost" Commentary |publisher=Department of History, Virginia Tech |website=History.vt.edu |access-date=2017-08-08}} and later in his award-winning 2005 book At Day's Close: Night in Times Past.{{cite web|author=Gideon Lewis-Kraus |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/books/review/at-days-close-the-dark-ages.html |title='At Day's Close': The Dark Ages |website=The New York Times |date=2005-07-24 |access-date=2017-08-08}}{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jul/30/featuresreviews.guardianreview8 |title=Review: At Day's Close by A Roger Ekirch | Books |work=The Guardian |date=2005-07-30 |access-date=2017-08-08}}{{cite web|last=Gorvett|first=Zaria|date=January 10, 2022|title=The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps'|url=https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieval-habit-of-biphasic-sleep|website=BBC Future|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220110010605/https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieval-habit-of-biphasic-sleep|archive-date=January 10, 2022|url-status=live}}{{cite web|last=Hegarty|first=Stephanie|date=February 22, 2012|title=The myth of the eight-hour sleep|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783|website=BBC News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140315065729/https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783|archive-date=March 15, 2014|url-status=live}}

Selected publications

=Books=

  • "Poor Carolina": Politics and society in Colonial North Carolina, 1729–1776, University of North Carolina Press, 1981.
  • Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718–1775, Oxford University Press, 1987.
  • At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, W.W. Norton, 2005.
  • Birthright: The True Story of the Kidnapping of Jemmy Annesley, W.W. Norton, 2010.
  • American Sanctuary: Mutiny, Martyrdom, and National Identity in the Age of Revolution, Pantheon, 2017.
  • La Grande Transformation du Sommeil: Comment la Revolution Industrielle a Bouleversé Nos Nuits, Editions Amersterdam, 2021.

=Articles=

  • "Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-Industrial Slumber in the British Isles", The American Historical Review, 2001.
  • "The Modernization of Western Slumber: Or, Does Insomnia Have a History?", Past & Present, 2015.
  • "Segmented Sleep in Preindustrial Societies", Sleep, 2016.
  • "What Sleep Research Can Learn From History", Sleep Health, 2018.

See also

References

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