Timepieces: Masterpieces of Chronometry

by David Christianson

Over the centuries, clocks have slowly, methodically and inextricably come to regulate every aspect of our lives. Timepieces tells the history of clocks and how the pursuit of an ever better clock has had a remarkable influence on scientific and technological developments. The 800-year journey to a perfect clock involved the greatest thinkers, scientists and mechanical geniuses, including those who improved the accuracy of mechanical clocks to such a degree that sailors could successfully determine longitude. That advance alone resulted in an explosion of travel, commerce and political expansion that would change the world map.

Tracing the history of "the key machine of the modern industrial age" is a remarkable way to trace the histories of technology and society. Each chapter focuses on one era of the clock's The Celestial Clock A Call to Prayer The Priceless Possession of a Few From Tabletop to Waistcoat and Beyond The Craft Era in Watchmaking The Industrial Revolution Swiss Watchmaking The Standardization of Time The Quartz Revolution

Illustrated with beautiful artworks and photographs from museums and clock collections, Timepieces is a thorough and attractive historical survey.

Genres: Nonfiction

160 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2002

Reviews

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only few pieces of important information existing in this book, guess if it was properly written it would take 10 pages the most. Author was mainly repeating himself chapter in chapter out in order to gain additional pages for this book, which I wonder why as actually the world and history of watches is rich, and if you want to write a proper book you could fill out with hundreds of well written pages.
I do not recommend this book as a reading material so much, only if you want to say that you read one more book on watches, but there are better written books on this subject out there.

[Marek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, good pictures. Makes me want to read more insightful detail on particular topics. This book gives good, wide, rather shallow view on the topic. Definitely good read to understand history of time measurement and its main milestones.

[Stephen Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of the development of watches and clocks. Leans more toward watches and clocks, and the historical examples don't give a lot of detail, so it's harder to see how things changed over the years. The book doesn't do a great job of explaining how mechanical watches/clocks actually WORK, or at least not unless you already have some practical mechanical/engineering understanding.