Manjit Kumar

Clocking On

Timekeepers: How the World Became Obsessed with Time

By

Canongate 346pp £16.99 order from our bookshop

‘In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance,’ says Orson Welles, playing Harry Lime in The Third Man. ‘In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock!’ The last two sentences are among the few in the screenplay not written by Graham Greene. And they are not true: the cuckoo clock was first made in Germany, which has not enjoyed five centuries of democracy or peace. This is one of the many intriguing pieces of information in Simon Garfield’s idiosyncratic and fascinating book that considers the practical applications rather than the philosophical aspects of time.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • In 'Silenced Voices' reports the ongoing story of the human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been… ,
    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    Follow Us