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A review by dsnake1
A Brief History of Timekeeping: The Science of Marking Time, from Stonehenge to Atomic Clocks by Chad Orzel
informative
medium-paced
3.5
NetGalley and the publisher provided me with a review copy.
A Brief History of Timekeeping: The Science of Marking Time, from Stonehenge to Atomic Clocks by Chad Orzel is a top-level overview of the ways humanity has kept track of time, primarily in chronological order.
Orzel clearly knows what he's talking about. From the broad overviews down to the specific examples, his history of clockwork and timekeeping is well-researched. His knowledge really shines, though, when we get to the back half of the book and move from discussions about calendars and astrological date keeping to mechanical clocks and the science of time. His experience as a physicist really comes off the page.
That being said, I really thought the book took a step down once it got into the science of timekeeping. The science portion is still relevant to the history of timekeeping, yes, and it's decently interesting stuff, but the whole tone changes. We go from a broad overview of the history of how and why people kept time and the differences in their methods and motivations to a detailed and focused look into the science of how recently modern and modern clocks keep time. There's a difference in tone and a difference in subject. This portion of the book, primarily the last few chapters, felt weaker to me than the early parts of the book.
Orzel does a solid job of both presenting the methods and history of how time was kept as well as presenting likely motivations for competing systems. The best example of this is his time spent writing about calendrical systems used by humanity throughout the past and how they came to be. The political and religious motivations were explained in a fascinating way, as well.
Overall, if you have questions about a specific era and how exactly people, from the rich to the poor to the urban to the rural, kept time, you may want to look for something more specific. If you want a decent outline of how timekeeping evolved, as well as thoughts and conceptions of time itself, this is a good book to pick up.
A Brief History of Timekeeping: The Science of Marking Time, from Stonehenge to Atomic Clocks by Chad Orzel is a top-level overview of the ways humanity has kept track of time, primarily in chronological order.
Orzel clearly knows what he's talking about. From the broad overviews down to the specific examples, his history of clockwork and timekeeping is well-researched. His knowledge really shines, though, when we get to the back half of the book and move from discussions about calendars and astrological date keeping to mechanical clocks and the science of time. His experience as a physicist really comes off the page.
That being said, I really thought the book took a step down once it got into the science of timekeeping. The science portion is still relevant to the history of timekeeping, yes, and it's decently interesting stuff, but the whole tone changes. We go from a broad overview of the history of how and why people kept time and the differences in their methods and motivations to a detailed and focused look into the science of how recently modern and modern clocks keep time. There's a difference in tone and a difference in subject. This portion of the book, primarily the last few chapters, felt weaker to me than the early parts of the book.
Orzel does a solid job of both presenting the methods and history of how time was kept as well as presenting likely motivations for competing systems. The best example of this is his time spent writing about calendrical systems used by humanity throughout the past and how they came to be. The political and religious motivations were explained in a fascinating way, as well.
Overall, if you have questions about a specific era and how exactly people, from the rich to the poor to the urban to the rural, kept time, you may want to look for something more specific. If you want a decent outline of how timekeeping evolved, as well as thoughts and conceptions of time itself, this is a good book to pick up.