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Originally Posted by JSWolf
I wasn't much of a fan of Longitude I found it focused more on the politics than the actual making of these clocks. It was not well written. It felt rather rushed.
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Certainly there was a lot of politics behind the story JSWolf. Just like today there were those who favored one position and those who favored the other side's position. Man doesn't change much I guess. In 'Longitude' it was the Astronomers vs. the Mechanicals (clockmakers) a few hundred yrs prior to that it was the Church vs. Scientists. Now days it's things like Politicians vs. Scientists about things like Global Warming. The topic of contention changes and so do the names of the factions but the propensity to argue for one side or the other stays the same. I think that's one of the pros of the book. It points out that what we think of as being the way things are today (i.e. political fighting) is actually a very old thing indeed.