The non-fiction book, “Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time,” by Dava Sobel is an ingenious book, much like the real story it tells. Thus, it fully deserves its rating of five out of five stars.

Now, I’m going to have you do an exercise to realize the true scope of the time period this book is set in. Imagine this: it is 1735—around forty years before the American Revolutionary War and you are a clockmaker who has just arrived in London. As you stiffly stand before a board of experts, you muster up your courage and state your case. You know that your clock is something revolutionary. You know that it can solve the problem that these experts have been looking for over twenty years— how to find a way to calculate longitude at sea.

While this may sound strange and even unreal, this was the situation that John Harrison, a self-taught clockmaker, faced. In 1735, he stood before the Board of Longitude—a board of experts in a variety of fields set up in 1714 by the British Parliament to best examine ways for the British Empire to find longitude at sea with a large cash prize for the winner—and explained that the clock he had created would be able to reliably and confidently find a vessels longitude while at sea.

This was an extraordinary creation. In an age where every sailor feared a slow death by scurvy or by shipwreck every time they lost sight of land; and dreaded becoming lost in the vastness of the sea at the smallest of navigation errors, Harrison’s achievement should have been lauded as the crowning achievement in navigation…

But it wasn’t.

Stymied time and time again by the Board of Longitude and his own enemies, the book shows how Harrison struggled to find popular support for his ideas, improve his designs, and claim the prize that rightfully belonged to him.

In the end, the book is short, informative, and an interesting look into the world’s maritime past—which makes it a digestible read for people interested in technology, history, and sailing. As well, these characteristics give it the five out of five star rating it deserves. So, if you’re so inclined, check out Dava Sobel’s fascinating book.