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This book is rather slow and plodding, but not altogether in a bad way. I listened to it in small bits while driving and it was enjoyable in small chunks.

I would tell you that time is a mortal measurement, so why do we want more of it? With that perspective, this book about the history of time was both interesting and thought provoking.

I learned, unsurprisingly, that clocks were started by political power and meant: know your place, stay in line, obey your rulers. I didn’t know that to Hindu’s time actually is God. Lots of religions rely on time, for certain times to pray, or certain times for services. Early on in art, time was equated with temperance of all things, and only later was the ticking clock equated with death.

Clockmakers were the ones that had the mechanical expertise to supply the industrial revolution with machines, including designing the spinning machine as well as many factories. In the modern age, for the purposes of world commerce, the exactitude of atomic clocks is both amazing and astonishingly necessary.

You might enjoy About Time if you are either a clock buff, or like to read about history through the perspective of a very specific topic. I give this book four stars.

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