Dava Sobel - Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time

Pros: An excellent read by an award-winning science Writer
Cons: none

I think I certainly would have squirmed a lot if I had been handed this kind of reading material as ...

Pros: Sobel knocks the stuffing out of history books with this quick-paced page-turner
Cons: A couple of times, the dates and details are TOO quick-paced

When you come right down to it, history is nothing more than a chain of tiny, connected events—the mundane, the trivial, the accidental invention. Think, for instance, where we’d be without the traffic light, the shoelace, the Post-it note....

Pros: Compelling page turning history ... maybe more young people will enjoy history this way!
Cons: None that I could find worthy of the mention.

Dava Sobel, like Simon Winchester or Canada’s Pierre Berton, has clearly mastered the art of writing history in a form that is not only informative but, perhaps more important, is also compelling and entertaining. In eighteenth century Europe, ...

Pros: An insight into a fascinating area of history
Cons: Too brief at times

Dava Sobel's Longitude is the story of the search for a reliable method of determining position at sea. Latitude (the lines which run round the earth and include the equator) were relatively easy to measure by the position of the sun. Longitude...

Pros: Intelligent recounting of the development of the perfect chronometer
Cons: A little dry and impersonal; no illustrations in the edition I read

As a child, I used to read of the great explorers and discoverers with awe - how on earth could they find their way around the globe, when I could hardly go around the block without getting lost? Latitude was no problem, as long as you could identify...

Pros: Extremely Palatable History of Science in the Age of Exploration
Cons: Too Short!

Dava Sobel casts a sympathetic and literate eye upon the early history of the Age of Exploration in 'Longitude', documenting the events that led to our ability to reckon East-West position and hence navigate without reliance upon star position. It is...

Pros: wonderful, inspiring book
Cons: some editions have few pictures.

This is a wonderful book. This book takes us back to a time when it was difficult to the point of impossibility for a sailor to know his position, or for anyone to accurately know the time of day. It also shows how one man can overcome the longest of...

Pros: The subject matter & quest for a solution
Cons: somewhat stilted writing style

Throughout the ages, scientists from Galileo to Sir Isaac Newton had mapped the heavens searching for an answer to mankind's most important nautical problem: how to determine how far you had sailed in degrees of longitude (east to west).

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Pros: fascinating
Cons: paperback edition has very few illustrations

Its hard to imagine now but until relatively recently man didn't have a clue where he was. Astronomers have been able to measure latitude for ages but the ability to measure longitude is of a more recent vintage. Man was literally lost at sea.
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Pros: Interesting Story, Quick read
Cons: Too many facts that can be overwhelming

This book was probably the most interesting non-fiction book that I have read recently, though not always in a good way. There were definitely a lot of facts stated throughout the book which made it interesting, however did overwhelm me and made me not ...

Pros: the eximent
Cons: it had too many big words

The book Longitude was a pretty good book. In the story it explained how the greatest scientific problem was solved. There were many different ideas to solve the longitude problem. But, the strongest were a mechanical answer or using the lunar method. ...