Ships Clocks and Stars: The Quest for Longitude

About this book

A tale of eighteenth-century invention and competition commerce and conflict this is a lively illustrated and accurate chronicle of the search to solve the longitude problem the question of how to determine a ships position at seaand one that changed the history of mankind. Ships Clocks and Stars brings into focus one of our greatest scientific stories: the search to accurately measure a ships position at sea. The incredible illustrated volume reveals why longitude mattered to seafaring nations illuminates the various solutions that were proposed and tested and explores the invention that revolutionized human history and the man behind it John Harrison. Here too are the voyages of Captain Cook that put these revolutionary navigational methods to the test. Filled with astronomers inventors politicians seamen and satirists Ships Clocks and Stars explores the scientific political and commercial battles of the age as well as the sailors ships and voyages that made it legendfrom Matthew Flinders and George Vancouver to the voyages of the Bounty and the Beagle. Featuring more than 150 photographs specially commissioned from Britains National Maritime Museum this evocative detailed and thoroughly fascinating history brings this age of exploration and enlightenment vividly to life.