Meetings, Manners and Civilization: The Development of Modern Meeting Behaviour

Gathering together to talk and decide about the communal future has become an increasingly important means of social integration. As a means of distinction for the elite, the stylization of meetings has replaced the stylization of drinking and eating. Discussions, decisions, negotiations and deliberations are little researched as behaviours which change along with changes in the balance of power between people. Frequently, implicitly or otherwise, people assume that present-day meeting manners were essentially always as they are now. This book provides a picture of how our meeting rules and behaviour have developed over time, and answers the question of why we hold meetings as we do.