I was hoping to learn something about the details of the mechanisms, how they work, and how they have changed over time. Other than the more technical sections, Hands of Time reads like a thoroughly enjoyable novel, fun to sit and read.

Data enthusiasts will love the detailed footnotes, glossary of terms, bibliography, further rescues, and extensive notes. Every morning when I sit at my bench, it is an adventure into a new timepiece with its own history to lose myself in. Hands of Time is an intricate exploration of the history, science, philosophy, and craft of timekeeping.We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. Hands of Time is smart, curious, digressive and brisk: an engaging survey through a period of intellectual history that reveals as much about people who wear watches as the objects on their wrists. There is not much here that anyone already steeped in the world of mechanical watches wouldn't already know, but it's still fun to hear about again.

It's the first book I read about watchmaking and it was a fascinating travel that involves more than I thought. Meanwhile, pocket watches had been positioned as the choice for men, adventurers, and cowboys – when Levi Strauss introduced his 501 jeans in 1873, the small inner pocket at their front right was designed to hold a pocket watch, a quirk that persists to this day. The book is a brisk 280-page history of the watch that tells the story of its main characters and objects.I’m excited about seeing some of these pieces up close, and luckily she provides a nice index of museums at the back that have good horology collections. What it is is a very simple, well-written work with a somewhat detailed history of horology, not just watches. Imagine trying to catch a train by depending on the Sun’s position, or to perform an organ transplant without measuring the patient’s heart rate precisely. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Yeah, not exactly a ringing endorsement of the NHS despite the literary 'happy ending' she gave it in that chapter.

Full of tales of royal intrigue and social history, it charts the story of watchmaking through the centuries and reflects on how time affects us all. Acclaimed watchmaker Rebecca Struthers uses the most important watches throughout history to explore their attendant paradigm shifts in how we think about time, indeed how we think about our own humanity. Hands of Time embarks on a rapid history of humans and timekeeping, starting with rudimentary counting bones that attempted to capture and document cosmic events, through Clypsedras and early innovators and their contributions up to the verge escapement, which led to the first church clocks. We've minimized the paperwork and maximized protection, so you can stop worrying about your watches and focus on enjoying them.

I have started to read this book just because i am huge mechanical watch enthusiast and I was hoping to learn more about wristwatches and their history. If I look out from my office window, I see three huge buildings with 'Rolex' in discreet lettering on top, so it was interesting to read about how the Swiss watch industry grew as a mass market response to the high costs imposed by the strict guilds of London. It was thorough and detailed but not dry, it reads more like you met the author at a dinner party and had a fascinating conversation about watches. By focusing on different ways time-keeping and watches have changed the world, a watchmaker takes us through a history of time, and her own life with timepieces. One of the few practicing watchmakers left in the world chronicles the history of time and the creation of the watch through human history, interlaced with the author's own experiences with a vast array of watches.