Navigational Enterprises in Europe and Its Empires, 1730-1850

ISBN-13: 9781137520630 / Angielski / Twarda / 2015 / 259 str.

Richard Dunn; Rebekah Higgitt

Opis

Navigational Enterprises in Europe and its Empires, 1730-1850 brings together the work of international authors to explore European experiences in the development of new navigational techniques and instruments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is the period in which the 'longitude problem' has been presented as being solved in an unproblematic way. Challenging this narrative, the book looks beyond just the British story to examine the role of governments, institutions, men of science, practitioners and navigators across Europe, and the use of the new and old techniques and instruments in practice. As the different chapters show, the methods available, including long-established navigational techniques such as dead reckoning and the newer astronomical and timekeeping methods of longitude determination, were complementary rather than exclusive. When and how they were used depended on local, national and other circumstances, although their development must be seen as the result of international and transnational exchanges.

Recenzje

"The well-written introduction by Rebekah Higgitt and Richard Dunn provides a good overview, and even readers who are not specialists will profit from studying the contents of this important contribution. It opens up many highly interesting research perspectives and can be recommended wholeheartedly." (Günther Oestmann, ISIS, Vol. 108 (4), December, 2017)

"The editors declare an aim of giving depth to the British story by describing analogous activity in other European countries and the transnational linkages that facilitated progress in the theory and practice of navigation. ... This volume must find a place in university libraries. It is essential reading for any serious student of the development of marine navigation." (M. K. Barritt, The Mariner's Mirror, Vol. 102 (2), April, 2016)

"This collection of essays deals with the development and introduction of methods for finding longitude at sea between 1730 and 1850, mainly by non-British nations. ... Approaching the issue from a non-British perspective considerably broad-ensour understanding and is no doubt the book's strongest point. ... this volume deserves a place in the bookcase of everyone interested in or studying the history of navigation and astronomy." (W. F. J. Mörzer Bruyns, The Northern Mariner, Vol. 26 (1), March, 2016)

"It has achieved a set of original perspectives on the Board and its work, that were not accessible from the internal study, as well as a rich series of accounts that are valuable in their own right. ... Taken together, these papers form an excellent book, which demonstrates that the study of navigation in the period, and perhaps particularly of the longitude problem, has resumed its serious engagement with historical work." (Jim Bennett, The International Journal of Maritime History, Vol. 28 (4), 2016)

O autorze

Richard Dunn is Senior Curator of the History of Science at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, UK, where he has worked since 2004.
Rebekah Higgitt is Lecturer in History of Science at the University of Kent, UK, and formerly Curator of History of Science at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
Dunn and Higgitt are co-authors of Finding Longitude: How Clocks and Stars Helped Solve the Longitude Problem (2014).