Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Time by Dava Sobel ★★★☆☆

I heart microhistories!

 Non Fiction – Microhistory – Chronometer

Publication Date:  1995

Pages:  192

Literary Awards:  Royal Society Prize Nominee for General Prize (1997)

In a time when the seas represented the chance for growth, but the perils and very real possibility of being lost at a sea hampered efforts, John Harrison created the chronometer.  This clock was his answer to the longitude problem.  While others wanted to depend on the night skies John Harrison chose to depend on technology.  Entering his idea into the English contest with unheard of winnings, Harrison and his son spent decades fighting for what they believed was their due and to prove the worth of their machine.

First, I just want to say, I adore microhistories.  They are delightful little nuggets of stories that usually hold more importance in the grand scheme of things than we could have imagined.  I also appreciate how they usually lead me to other semi related topics.  My gushing over, I can now move onto the actual review

I personally have never really considered before how half hazard ship navigation was.  Most of my history lessons involved how the ships found places, not how they were basically just guesstimating their proximity to the desired destination, with very real and horrible consequences.  Ms. Sobel really laid out the issue in such a way for me, as a modern reader, to understand the dangers each voyage faced.  Once explained it was incredibly easy to appreciate how this clock could change things and why it was so incredibly important.

Ms. Sobel’s popular account of this monumental time in history is more suited to the everyday reader than an academic.  Her writing style leaned toward the elegant and the flow of the interesting and easy to follow narrative was engaging (let’s be honest, even a history lover like myself knows that it takes talent to keep the information from going dry).  Her story telling was well-constructed and had some really great anecdotes woven seamlessly in (the whole bit about how sauerkraut warded off scurvy was really fascinating).  Her assessment of the issues appears to be fair and free of hero worship.   She gives off the impression of some well able apt to understand the subject (okay, so I know that sounds kind like a “well duh” statement, but trust me, not all writer’s ambition is well matched to their ability).  It is short enough to be a one sit read, but in the fight for my attention it did tend to lose out, so it took me a few days.  It would have been nice to have a directory of characters at the back to help keep track of the players.  And I would have really liked to see a schematic and picture with working explanation of the chronometer (though I did find out after I finished writing the review that the 10^th anniversary addition apparently addresses this issue).  Overall I am impressed with Ms. Sobel and in pursuit of her other books.

ISBN  0802714625 (ISBN13: 9780802714626)