Timepieces: Masterpieces of Chronometry

Rating:
Summary: A great effort but...
Review: I find it interesting that David Christianson chose to have an American-made Waltham pocket watch adorn the cover of his book. Take a good look; it's virtually the only reference to American watchmaking you'll see or read about.

There is a prevailing attitude among those who don't take the time to study their history that the European community, namely the Swiss and, to a lesser extent, the French and English, invented watch and clockmaking. Christianson takes great care to give homage to this group in "Timepieces", but gives only the briefest nod to the practical and commercial applications that American watchmakers introduced. Yes, a Frenchman developed Invar and Elinvar, alloys which virtually eliminated temperature variations that caused watches to be inaccurate. However, when the Chief Metallurgist at the Hamilton Watch Company discovered that Elinvar fluctuated alarmingly in quality, he developed an alloy which outperformed the finest ever manufactured in Europe.

It should be noted that American watch manufacturers did not disappear because of inferior products. A lack of tariff restrictions allowed the Swiss to flood this country with cheap watches. This book is essentially a Valentine to this group.

Rating:
Summary: A resume about the mechanical clocks and watches development
Review: This book is a resume of what is written on the brilliant book of David Landes, Revolution in Time. It has a huge amount of photos, and worths every peny paid.
The book, as mentioned by the reader above, does not cover American Watches history in depth. Even tought, is a very good book.


Rating:
Summary: Coffee Table Book
Review: This book is a short 160 page "coffee table" picture book on clocks and the history of mechanical clocks with some information on earlier pre-mechanical clocks. After reviewing these early clocks, the book takes us forward from about the 15th century to modern day clocks.

Mechanical clocks or timepieces first started to appear in Europe in approximately the 13th century. The first clock with a mechanical balance wheel or an escapement was thought to be in France about 1250, while the first clear drawings and similar records are from 1364. It is guessed that a number of different early clocks probably date from 1250 or a bit later originating from different parts of Europe. The popular European clocks were developed using the foliot mechanism, the rotating arm with mechanical balls on each end. These clocks started to be made in volumes in the 15th century.

The author has included drawings and photographs of some early sun clocks and similar, but he quickly moves to photographs of mechanical clocks that started to appear at or around 1450. Clocks have improved in accuracy by approximately a factor of 2 every thirty years up to the 20th century as the mechanisms were refined and then more recently changed to electronic and similar devices. He shows in photographs many of these changes.

The book chronicles with beautiful color pictures and with slightly more text the types of clocks popular in Europe from 1500 to 1800 or so, then the expansion of the clock manufacturing to North America and Asia.

So this is a short book with lots of colourful pictures of many old clocks and some newer timepieces, some very elaborate and expensive. It is basically a coffee table book, and you can obtain most of the same information on a GOOGLE search if you just want timepiece information and history.

So three or 4 stars.