Revolution in Time-Clocks and the Making of the Modern World
Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 1:08 pm
I just finished reading Revolution In Time by David S Landes. It's about the cultural, technological and manufacturing aspects of measuring time and making clocks. It was an excellent book 
, though I had to skim a bit in the middle as the discussion regarding clock technology in the 17th and 18th centuries was quite extended.
Over time, I'll post up some passages that I found interesting.
They'll be either single lines or longer, as the whim takes me. If you find them interesting, feel free to add comments or additional info. 
If you don't, then the thread will die on the vine.
The books is in three parts.
1) Finding Time - discusses the cultural aspects of time keeping. Before clocks, it was the sun and agriculture that were used to mark time.
2) Keeping Time - a history of timekeeping technology. From early Chinese water clocks, the first automatic clocks of the 13th century, up to the present.
3) Making Time - a history of clock and watch manufacturing. England, France, Germany, US, Japan, Switzerland etc.
To start, a couple of quotes at the beginning of the book:
The clock is not merely a means of keeping track of the hours, but of synchronizing the actions of men.
The clock, not the steam engine, is the key machine of the modern industrial age...In its relationship to the determinable quantities of energy, to standardization, to automatic action, and initially to its own special product, accurate timing, the clock has been the foremost machine in modern technics; and at each period it has remained in the lead: it marks a perfection toward which other machines aspire.
--Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization
Use time, or time will use you.
--Old Proverb
, though I had to skim a bit in the middle as the discussion regarding clock technology in the 17th and 18th centuries was quite extended. Over time, I'll post up some passages that I found interesting.
They'll be either single lines or longer, as the whim takes me. If you find them interesting, feel free to add comments or additional info. If you don't, then the thread will die on the vine.
The books is in three parts.
1) Finding Time - discusses the cultural aspects of time keeping. Before clocks, it was the sun and agriculture that were used to mark time.
2) Keeping Time - a history of timekeeping technology. From early Chinese water clocks, the first automatic clocks of the 13th century, up to the present.
3) Making Time - a history of clock and watch manufacturing. England, France, Germany, US, Japan, Switzerland etc.
To start, a couple of quotes at the beginning of the book:
The clock is not merely a means of keeping track of the hours, but of synchronizing the actions of men.
The clock, not the steam engine, is the key machine of the modern industrial age...In its relationship to the determinable quantities of energy, to standardization, to automatic action, and initially to its own special product, accurate timing, the clock has been the foremost machine in modern technics; and at each period it has remained in the lead: it marks a perfection toward which other machines aspire.
--Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization
Use time, or time will use you.
--Old Proverb
