About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks

by David Rooney Narrated by David Rooney

Overview

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.”

Editorial Reviews

JANUARY 2022 - AudioFile

In his jovial British accent, David Rooney narrates his fascinating audiobook about clocks, time, and human history. His voice lends wit and sometimes humor, which both enhance the work. He opens with an account of a tragic aviation accident and explains how clock-based technology might have prevented it. Many listeners will remember when Korean Airlines Flight 007 flew off course into Soviet airspace and was shot down by fighter planes in 1983. The audiobook is divided into chapters describing the role of time and timekeeping throughout the millennia, and discussing how human inventiveness has advanced technology in general. Listeners will be entertained—and may never look at their watches in the same way again. D.G.P. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

06/07/2021

Rooney, the former curator of timekeeping at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, debuts with a rich survey of how timekeeping has shaped human history. Beginning with the first city sundial mounted in ancient Rome in 263 BCE, Rooney argues that clocks have been used to control behavior and secure power. Built in 1611, Amsterdam’s Stock Exchange Clock contributed to the “birth of modern capitalism” by tolling the city’s “short, fixed trading hours,” which increased trade volume and helped keep prices fair. In the 1830s, British astronomers at the Cape of Good Hope observatory in South Africa helped ships set their navigational instruments to time by firing a pistol and dropping a “time ball” from the top of a wooden mast (“an act of imperial timekeeping shot over the heads of the African people who were being displaced from their land and robbed of their freedom and humanity”). In the late 19th century, a new U.S.-based manufacturing system built on interchangeable parts and specialist machines brought the British clockmaking industry to its knees before revolutionizing manufacturing around the world. Rooney is an enthusiastic and well-informed guide, and doesn’t shy away from the darker aspects of the story. Readers will gain newfound appreciation for what it means to keep the time. (Aug.)

Ludmilla Jordanova

"David Rooney’s passionate enthusiasm for everything clock-related leaps off every page. The vivid writing, engaging stories, and autobiographical details combine to offer a rich and generous picture of the history of clocks, from China and Japan to Central Europe, the Middle East and outer space. In clear, pacey, and evocative prose, Rooney’s volume takes in ancient wonders and modern marvels, leaving us at once enlightened and moved."

Jonathan Meades

"The measurement of time is a convenience, a jailor, a tyrannical device. David Rooney’s delightful and discursive work anatomizes that tyranny. Page after page offers up instances of time’s ubiquity and its mercurial power to get into the interstices of the everyday."

Forbes - Jonathon Keats

"Fascinating.... with [Rooney’s] book in hand, and an eye on the world that sustains us, we might just save ourselves."

Wall Street Journal - Michael O'Donnell

"Fascinating.... A valuable intellectual journey at a moment ripe for contemplation."

Seb Falk

"Enthralling and important, About Time takes us deep into the past and far into the future. With David Rooney as personable guide, we peer inside clocks from Kyoto to Cape Town, discovering what they meant to the diverse people who made them, used them, whose lives were ruled by them…This is a gripping and revealing account of time, and humanity’s changing relationship with it."

Richard Holmes

"Not merely an horologist’s delight, but an ingenious meditation on the nature and symbolism of time-keeping itself. From the medieval hourglass to the Doomsday Clock, from Jaipur to Jodrell Bank, from GMT to GPS, Rooney ticks off time in a highly entertaining series of historical tales and parables which also give pause for thought and sometimes alarming reflections. I will never hear the pips, or ask ‘what’s the time?’ in quite the same way again. A striking success."

New York Times Book Review - Simon Winchester

"Abundantly clever.... Lovely and engaging ... with myriad fascinations on every page."

Dava Sobel

"People say time is money, but David Rooney knows better. In this information-packed swoop through history and into the future, he exposes time’s many identities along with the hidden agendas of clocks. Time is knowledge. Time is power. Time is faith. Time is destiny."

Jerry Brotton

"About Time is an utterly dazzling book, the best piece of history I have read for a long time. From sundials in ancient Rome to astronomical, water-driven, mechanical, and atomic timepieces used throughout history and across cultures, Rooney has written the definitive book on these remarkable objects that give order to everyday life. It is a moving and beautifully written book that even takes us 5,000 years into the future with plutonium clocks ticking away beneath our feet. There will be many puns about this as a timely book; in fact, it is timeless."

New York Review of Books - James Gleick

"Insightful, globe-spanning."

Library Journal

08/01/2021

Time and timekeeping are often said to have transformed civilization; see, for instance, the widespread theory that innovations in mechanical clockwork forever changed medieval society. In his new book, horologist-geographer Rooney (Spaces of Congestion and Traffic) goes into great detail about the relationship between civilization and timekeeping. He analyzes the innovations and impacts of timekeeping devices from around the world, including a third-century BCE sundial at the Roman Forum, the 1611 Amsterdam Stock Exchange clock, and the Plutonium Timekeeper of Osaka, built in 1970 and placed into a time capsule to be opened in the year 6970. Rooney also discusses, for instance, the social implications of the clock tower at the British Raj-founded Mayo College in Ajmer, India, and its domination of the surrounding landscape. Readers will appreciate Rooney's history of timekeeping, from ancient sundials, to the water clocks of imperial China, to medieval hourglasses and mechanical clocks, to the Greenwich Royal Observatory. This book discusses timekeeping in terms of scientific innovation, artistry, and political power. VERDICT An interesting book for world history readers, especially those interested in the history of science or art.—Jeffrey Meyer, Iowa Wesleyan Univ.

JANUARY 2022 - AudioFile

In his jovial British accent, David Rooney narrates his fascinating audiobook about clocks, time, and human history. His voice lends wit and sometimes humor, which both enhance the work. He opens with an account of a tragic aviation accident and explains how clock-based technology might have prevented it. Many listeners will remember when Korean Airlines Flight 007 flew off course into Soviet airspace and was shot down by fighter planes in 1983. The audiobook is divided into chapters describing the role of time and timekeeping throughout the millennia, and discussing how human inventiveness has advanced technology in general. Listeners will be entertained—and may never look at their watches in the same way again. D.G.P. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2021-06-19
A cavalcade of clocks.

Rooney, the former curator of timekeeping at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, takes readers on a dramatic historical tour of horology to show what clocks mean; how, over thousands of years, they became more precise; and how time itself “has been harnessed, politicized and weaponized.” The author delivers a lovely, personal, idiosyncratic “story centered on power, control, money, morality and belief.” Rooney traces the development in timekeeping instruments, from the earliest sundials to an acoustic water clock that may have existed in the city of Verona in the early 500s to a plutonium time-capsule clock buried in Osaka in 1970. Automaton water clocks spread across the medieval Islamic world to remind its citizens of who was in power, and the first mechanical and astronomical clocks flourished throughout Europe after the 13th century. Gradually, Rooney notes, a new idea was born: “that time could be wasted.” The author chronicles his visit to Siena to observe a painting from 1338 that prominently features the “oldest known depiction of an hourglass.” This timepiece, he writes, represented “the cutting edge of horological technology” that would impact the way Western civilization thought about right and wrong, life and death. In the 1610s, Amsterdam’s groundbreaking stock exchange erected “one of the most significant clocks ever made…sounding the birth of modern capitalism.” In 1732, the Indian city of Jaipur constructed the largest sundial ever. The rise of coastal time signals—balls, discs, guns, or flags—“spoke volumes about the shifting sands of global geopolitics.” Rooney also insightfully explores the ramifications of electricity and the creation of standardized time, which had a controversial, even violent, cultural impact: “we have poured our very identities into clocks.” Somberly, the author writes about the “The Clock of Doom,” designed in 1947, which reminds “us what happens when time runs out.” Throughout, Rooney entertains with witty clock trivia and anecdotes alongside illuminating sketches of famous horologists.

Go slowly when devouring this charming, intelligent, highly informative history.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176031980
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	10/19/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged

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