An epic 40 year struggle!

Dava Sobel, like Simon Winchester or Canada's Pierre Berton, has clearly mastered the art of writing history in a form that is not only informative but, perhaps more important, is also compelling and entertaining.

In eighteenth century Europe, although scientists had long wrestled with the problem, sailors had no method of determining their longitude. The economic losses and the loss of life was so staggering that finding a solution to the problem was elevated to the almost legendary level of finding the Holy Grail or the Fountain of Youth. In the Longitude Act of 1714, the British Parliament offered a prize of 20,000 pounds (equivalent to several million dollars today) to anyone who found a "practicable and useful" means of determining longitude.

One need look no further than the list of stellar minds that were applied to the problem (and failed to find the solution) - Tycho Brahe, Christian Huygens, Robert Cooke, Edmund Halley, Galileo and Vincenzo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton, Christopher Wren - to appreciate the almost insurmountable difficulty that this issue presented to the navigators of the day.

LONGITUDE presents the story of John Harrison, a self-taught Yorkshire clockmaker, who struggles alone to raise the art of clock making to unheard of levels of accuracy. The story of his ultimately receiving the prize from Britain's Board of Longitude is a dramatic, inspiring and heart-rending portrayal of 40 years of perseverance and struggle against political shenanigans and skullduggery as well as personal feuds, jealousy and outright espionage and sabotage.

From Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell's catastrophic loss of over 2000 lives when his fleet crashed at Land's End in 1707 to the refurbishment of Harrison's prize-winning chronometer for posterity in 1833, Dava Sobel has brought this small but important piece of the 18th century to life in a way that few other writers could manage. Two thumbs up for a thoroughly enjoyable piece of non-fiction writing!

Paul Weiss

I don’t think I really thought about it until like the first chapter of this book, but longitude really is just a man made concept. There’s nothing special about greenwich that necessitates the prime meridian running through it. This book was interesting to read. It was short and sweet, all the chapters were bite sized, and it taught me something i probably never would have even thought to learn about.

This dude john harrison took some massive Ls in his life tho ngl. it took him like half of his adult life to make four clocks and then the other half of his adult life to get paid for it, and all the time this dickhead nevil was tryna kill his vibe bc nevil was super into astrology. fuck nevil. i feel like everybody has a nevil in their life. honestly i’ve never thought too fondly of british folks or ever really felt a desire to go visit england. however, now i want to go just to check out john’s clocks.

i think it’s probably a little too far fetched to say his clocks led to the rise of the british empire, but i could see why someone would think that. he basically single handedly made it easy to figure out where you were in the ocean while sailing with a useful level of accuracy and precision. ostensibly, this led to better maritime trade and naval prowess for the brit’s.

it’s cool how technology progresses exponentially. john harrison worked for 40 years to make a mechanical clock that he could use to tell position within ten nautical miles, and now i can use a ten dollar flip phone to triangulate my position to like the nearest 100 feet. makes u appreciate the lil things fr.

Longitude tells the incredible story of John Harrison, an 18th century clock maker who entered into a contest to create the first clock (chronometer) capable of withstanding the rigors of a sea voyage so that mariners could determine their correct longitude at sea. When the organizers of the contest balked at awarding Harrison the prize money, he took his fight to court. A spellbinding tale that reads more like a suspense thriller. Great for lovers of science, history, sea adventures, and underdogs who find the courage to take on the system.

Interesting read that details how the Prime Meridian came to be set in England and how a lone clock maker clashed with bureaucracy of the longitude commission.