Clockwork Man by Lawrence Wright

Clockwork Man by Lawrence Wright

A delightful and harmless toy, the clock, was invented to register the measured passing of time. It was no doubt a useful discovery, like pest control, an exciting contraption, like the flying machine, a brilliant technical achievement, like nuclear fission. But more thought has been devoted to the development of these devices than to the control of their effects. On the wall of every inventor's study there might hang, as warning, a portrait of Dr Guillotin, whose head was removed with such precision by the machine he had lately perfected.

Clockwork Man is not a technical history of horology, nor does it explore abstract philosophies of time. It is a book about everyday life of which the calendar and the clock have taken undue control. 'The calendar' includes the almanac, the appointments book, the time-table and all manner of schedules whereby our employers, legislators, public authorities, schoolmasters and police, order our actions. 'The clock' embraces all forms of timepiece from the sun-dial to the 'master clock' which is accurate to one part in 100,000 million; the radio time-signal, the factory siren and the parking meter.

Lawrence Wright, author of Clean and Decent and Warm and Snug, has packed this lively book with all manner of facts and figures: how we arrived at the Gregorian calendar, Chaucer's instructions to his son on the use of the astrolabe, the time that Henry VIII dined, the fact that Trollope's school day began at 5.30 a.m., that at eight years of age you can be required to walk two miles to school, and that on April Fool's Day, 1861, Big Ben chimed 37 times at 1 a.m.

The theme of this book dates from at least the second century B.C. when Plautus wrote in exasperation: 'The gods confound the man who first found out How to distinguish hours— confound him, too, Who in this place set up a sun-dial To cut and hack my days so wretchedly Into small pieces!' 

Details

• Hardcover with dust jacket (Acceptable and protected in plastic)
  
• Condition: Very good, no notes/stamps  
• Publisher: Elek Books 1986