Book Review - Longitude, by Dava Sobel

I’ve got to confess that I love Maths and Physics as well as a bit of Geography – so this book was always likely to fascinate me. However I’m not that good with mechanics, which turned out to be where I struggled most with the book.

I enjoyed the story of the scientific pursuit and the way that personalities and politics influenced the endeavour. I think you have to admire the dedication and focus of many of these people – some who painstakingly observed the heavens and others who meticulously crafted clocks, taking many years to finish a single model.

After ANZAC day we are particularly aware of the critical importance of being able to determine your position accurately, and we’ve probably forgotten how difficult an art that has been until quite recently.

My main disappointment was the lack of pictures! I would have thought that it was only logical to include the schematics for the various clocks and watches, and maps of some of the locations mentioned. My mind struggled to properly understand the mechanisms and their functions as they were described, since I had nothing to visualise. Because I couldn’t see how they fitted together, I didn’t get a full appreciation for the workings and the skill required to invent and assemble them.

I was grateful for the stories in the book that illustrated the need for the system of determining longitude, as the book would have been pretty dry otherwise. Even so, it’s still probably a book more for the curious tinker or historian than the average person.