History of the hour
Subtitle: clocks and modern temporal orders
By: Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum ; translated by Thomas Dunlap.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 455
Subjects: Clocks and watches -- History; Time measurements -- History
Work titles: Geschichte der Stunde. English
Description: History of the Hour presents the first sustained and reliable treatment of how mechanical clocks functioned in cities and dispels many myths associated with the clock's history. For example, Dohrn-van Rossum argues that, in their race to display the grandest clocks, monarchs and princes were more responsible than merchants for introducing clocks into urban environments.

This work also questions what is generally believed regarding the clock's invention, including the role of the hour-glass, the arrival of the mechanical clock before scientific rationality, and the obscure history of the escapement, the clock's regulating mechanism.
Notes: Translation of: Die Geschichte der Stunde. Includes bibliographical references (p. [435]-438) and index.

6