QuillAndQuery

Overview

The 18th century was a time of bold expansion – and frequent reality checks. The New World had been colonized for over two centuries and transatlantic travel had become a cornerstone of imperial ambition. Still, it was not without its challenges. Chief among them: the problem of longitude.

Unlike, its simpler cousin latitude, the distance between longitudinal lines is not uniform, and its zero point – the Prime Meridian – is placed arbitrarily, offering only a vague reference for calculation. By its very nature, longitude made East to West oceanic travel so difficult to calculate that the English government convened a board to solve the issue, dangling a small fortune in front of anyone who could crack the code.

Enter the Board of Longitude. A convent of prominent English navigators, engineers, and astronomers, the board threw down the gauntlet for England’s scientific class. One unlikely hero stepped forward, the self-taught Yorkshire clockmaker John Harrison. To Harrison’s view, solving longitude was really a problem of knowing the difference in time between your current position and some known fixed point at high noon. Contemporary clocks were unfit for the task, being too sensitive to moisture, changes in temperature, and the natural swaying of open seas. The were the problems enrapturing Harrison in the development of his master invention: the Harrison One, or H-1 for short. The race for longitude had found its most obsessive contestant.

Review

A New York Times Bestseller, Dava Sobel’s Longitude is a poetic retelling of what is, at its heart, the story of a man and his clocks. Opening with a captivating re-telling of the troubles that longitude presented to 18th century England, Sobel manages to explain foreign and centuries old navigational concepts without losing its audience of novice seafarers. I did find myself re-reading small portions for better understanding (trying to understand the lunar distance model was a particular trip), but that says more about my relationship with astronomy than Sobel’s prose.

The momentum builds with the introduction of John Harrison. Described by Sobel as a genius, if slightly erratic, carpenter and clockmaker, Harrison’s journey through the development of H-1 and its descendants is thrilling. Sobel manages to spend pages describing the intricacies of his inventions without crossing into textbook territory. It’s absorbing stuff, Harrison’s inventions aren’t just machines – they’re characters.

It’s here, amid ticking brass and whirring gears that Longitude pulls off its best trick. I found myself growing an attachment to these machines that, hours prior, I did not even know existed. Perhaps a little too attached. When the inevitable cast of bureaucrats and naysayers surfaced, I nearly leapt through the pages in Harrison’s defense. I credit this emotion to Sobel’s wonderful personification of Harrison’s family of timepieces. Each one was described with the detail you would expect of a piece of fine art, studied and characterized by amateurs and snobs for decades. She describes H-1 as being as close to a time machine as 18th century England would ever get, and, to be honest, I thought it was a bit grandiose. Then you see the real thing – and it holds up.

Admittedly, I came into this book with a bit of prejudice. The historical relevance of a simple navigational problem was not immediately apparent to me, nor will it likely be to you. That being said, Sobel’s illustration of a world bounded by its ability to only calculate position in one dimension changed my mind within the first ten pages. Harrison’s inventions and the challenges set forth by the Board of Longitude changed navigational history forever and re-energized a new interest in the transatlantic crossing. Not to mention the impact Harrison’s works had on modern time keeping. Today’s time pieces are still built upon the principles that Harrison developed in his English workshop almost three centuries ago. There is a reason why England was chosen to house the mean time for the rest of the world in Greenwich. And there’s a reason this book is still ticking in my mind long after the final page.

Summary

Longitude tackled an obscure problem in a seemingly niche topic and absolutely enraptured me in the Journey. I usually find that books tend to live up to my expectations. If I’m interested in the subject I tend to enjoy them. If not, they tend to be a slog. Longitude should have fallen into the latter category, but instead I refused to put it down until Harrison had gotten the recognition he and his machines deserved.

For history lovers, or anyone intrigued by the quiet revolutions that shape our world, Sobel offers a story as precise and compelling as the clocks it celebrates. Join her, and you may find yourself unexpectedly invested in the ticking heart of maritime navigation.

Read this book if:

• You are interested in ships or maritime exploration.
• You are interested in watchmaking, carpentry, or engineering.
• You would like to see scientific titans such as Newton or Galileo appear in the context of much broader stories.
• You appreciate 18th century English history.
• You’re looking for a short and highly engaging read.