Jonathan Owen

An enjoyable and interesting book. It’s well written, the prose runs smoothly. Mr Rooney has remarkable knowledge and a fascinating life experience. I wish though, it had a little more about the clocks rather than the removed sociopath political historical commentary which seemed to me to be a bit heavy on opinion with a lot of “aren’t empires horrible, didn’t people get oppressed by them” (and their clocks) Anyone with any conscience and knowledge knows empires past, did thoroughly unpleasant things. Yet It felt at times in the book as if we should consider this as the prime thought, rather than marvel at the science and the journey it is taking us on. To me it would be better if the emphasis was about how clocks joined the world together, more than the mess we made while doing it.