History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders, Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum, trans. Thomas Dunlap, University of Chicago Press, 1996, paperback, p 455, £15.95.

Originally published in German in 1992, Rossum’s book deals with the problems involved in keeping accurate time from ancient sundials and water clocks to the modern period but with an emphasis on the early modern period. The invention of the clock brought technology to the service of time keeping, but Rossum’s final chapter deals with the way in which technology in the form of train travel prompted standardisation in time keeping.