Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
Audiobook9 hours
About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks
Written by David Rooney
Narrated by David Rooney
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
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About this audiobook
For thousands of years, people of all cultures have made and used clocks: city sundials in ancient Rome, medieval water clocks in imperial China, hourglasses fomenting revolution in the Middle Ages, the Stock Exchange clock of Amsterdam in 1611, Enlightenment observatories in India, high-precision clocks circling the Earth on
a fleet of GPS satellites that have been launched since 1978. Clocks have helped us navigate the world and build empires, and have even taken us to the brink of destruction. Elites have used them to wield power, make money, govern citizens, and control lives—and sometimes the people have used them to fight back.
Through the stories of twelve clocks, About Time brings pivotal moments from the past vividly to life. Historian and lifelong clock enthusiast David Rooney takes us from the unveiling of al-Jazari’s castle clock in 1206, in present-day Turkey; to the Cape of Good Hope observatory at the southern tip of Africa, where nineteenth century
British government astronomers moved the gears of empire with a time ball and a gun; to the burial of a plutonium clock now sealed beneath a public park in Osaka, where it will keep time for 5,000 years.
Rooney shows, through these artifacts, how time has been imagined, politicized, and weaponized over the centuries—and how it might bring peace. Ultimately, he writes, “the technical history of horology is only the start of the story. … A history of clocks is a history of civilization.”
a fleet of GPS satellites that have been launched since 1978. Clocks have helped us navigate the world and build empires, and have even taken us to the brink of destruction. Elites have used them to wield power, make money, govern citizens, and control lives—and sometimes the people have used them to fight back.
Through the stories of twelve clocks, About Time brings pivotal moments from the past vividly to life. Historian and lifelong clock enthusiast David Rooney takes us from the unveiling of al-Jazari’s castle clock in 1206, in present-day Turkey; to the Cape of Good Hope observatory at the southern tip of Africa, where nineteenth century
British government astronomers moved the gears of empire with a time ball and a gun; to the burial of a plutonium clock now sealed beneath a public park in Osaka, where it will keep time for 5,000 years.
Rooney shows, through these artifacts, how time has been imagined, politicized, and weaponized over the centuries—and how it might bring peace. Ultimately, he writes, “the technical history of horology is only the start of the story. … A history of clocks is a history of civilization.”
Author
David Rooney
David Rooney saw war service in India and West Africa as a Captain in the Queen's Royal Regiment. After the war he read history at Keble College, Oxford, and went on to a teaching career in Belfast, Germany and England, including four years as a Senior Lecturer at Sandhurst. He is a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and continues to lecture and write.
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