A General History of Horology

Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-0-19-886391-5
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 776 Seiten, Format (B × H): 261 mm x 329 mm, Gewicht: 3034 g

A General History of Horology describes instruments used for the finding and measurement of time from Antiquity to the 21st century. In geographical scope it ranges from East Asia to the Americas. The instruments described are set in their technical and social contexts, and there is also discussion of the literature, the historiography and the collecting of the subject. The book features the use of case studies to represent larger topics that cannot be completely covered in a single book.

The international body of authors have endeavoured to offer a fully world-wide survey accessible to students, historians, collectors, and the general reader, based on a firm understanding of the technical basis of the subject. At the same time as the work offers a synthesis of current knowledge of the subject, it also incorporates the results of some fundamental, new and original research.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Turner, Anthony

Nye, James

Betts, Jonathan

Fachgebiete

• Technische Wissenschaften Technik Allgemein Technik: Allgemeines
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Forschung und Information Forschungsmethodik, Wissenschaftliche Ausstattung
• Technische Wissenschaften Technik Allgemein Konstruktionslehre und -technik
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction

- Horology: The word

- Hour Systems

- 1: Jérôme Bonnin: Time measurement in Antiquity

- 2: India and the Far East: dials, water-clocks, fire-clocks

- India

- China to 1900

- Modern China

- Japan

- 3: Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

- Sun-dials and water-clocks in Byzantium and Islam

- Time-reckoning in the Medieval Latin world

- Water-clocks and the earliest escapements

- Sand-clocks, sand-glasses, and fire-clocks

- 4: Marisa Addomine: Public clocks: fourteenth to eighteenth centuries

- 5: The domestic clock in Europe

- From the fifteenth century to the mid-seventeenth century

- From Huygens to the end of the eighteenth century.

- 6: David Thompson: Watches in Europe 1600 - 1800

- 7: Anthony Turner: The Structures of horological manufacture and trade: sixteenth to eighteenth centuries

- 8: Denis Savoie: The development of the sundial fourteenth to twentieth centuries

- 9: Clocks as astronomical models

- Planetary clocks to the end of the eighteenth century

- The nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

- 10: Sharon Kerman: Musical and automaton clocks and watches: sound and motion in time-telling devices

- 11: Jonathan Betts: The quest for precision in astronomy and navigation

- 12: Anthony Turner: Decimal Time

- 13: Industrial manufacture: clock and watch-making in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

- The mixed fortunes of Britain

- American horology and its global reach

- The horological endeavour in France

- The challenge of the Swiss and their competitors

- Developing the German industry

- A case-study in standardisation: la pendule de Paris

- 14: Jonathan Betts: Precision attained: chronometers and regulators in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

- 15: Catherine Cardinal: Responding to customer demand: the decoration of clocks and watches from the Renaissance to recent times

- 16: Roger Smith: Eighteenth-century clock exports from Britain to the East Indies

- 17: Marisa Addomine: Public clocks in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

- 18: David Boettcher: Wrist-watches from their origins to the twenty-first century

- 19: James Nye, David Rooney: Electricity, horology, and networked time

- 20: Joëlle Mauerhan: Women in horology

- 21: Jonathan Betts: The keeping of clocks and watches: maintenance, repair and restoration

- 22: Estelle Fallet: Accessories in horology

- 23: Applications of clockwork

- Orreries and planetaria

- Timers and telescope drives

- Metronomes

- Car clocks

- Watchmans' clocks

- Roasting jacks

- 24: Christina Faraday: Horology verbalised; horology visualised

- 25: Bernhard Huber: The Literature of horology

- 26: Anthony Turner: Collecting and writing the history of horology

- 27: Glossary

- 28: Bibliography

- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Anthony Turner works primarily on the history of scientific instruments, clocks, watches and related items in their technical and social contexts during the Early Modern period. As consultant he collaborates with leading museums and auction houses and has been responsible for the organisation of several international exhibitions.

James Nye studied Theology at Oxford, and later completed a PhD in Financial History at Kings College London. His thesis included case studies of early electric clock companies, reflecting a lifelong involvement in horology, especially in the electrical arena. From practical bench work on clocks as a teenager, his career progressed to researching and writing on the history of time measurement. A continuing theme in his ongoing work is the emergence of distributed accurate timekeeping from the late nineteenth century onwards. James is chair of the Antiquarian Horology Society, and founder and principal sponsor of London's Clockworks Museum.

Jonathan Betts, a professional horologist all his life, was Senior Conservator and then Senior Curator of Horology at Royal Museums Greenwich for 35 years, and remains a Curator Emeritus. He is also Horological Adviser to a number of heritage bodies including the National Trust. He is Vice Chair and Honorary Librarian of the Antiquarian Horological Society.