History of the hour

History of the Hour presents the first sustained and reliable treatment of how mechanical clocks functioned in cities and dispels many myths associated with the clock's history. For example, Dohrn-van Rossum argues that, in their race to display the grandest clocks, monarchs and princes were more responsible than merchants for introducing clocks into urban environments.

This work also questions what is generally believed regarding the clock's invention, including the role of the hour-glass, the arrival of the mechanical clock before scientific rationality, and the obscure history of the escapement, the clock's regulating mechanism.