David Landes, perhaps best known for his recent The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, has revised this earlier work, which was originally published in the US in 1983. It is as much a study of the changing concepts of time as it is of how the invention of mechanical clocks and watches transformed Europe. Landes deals masterly with the difficult scientific and technological questions that had to be resolved by [...]

From Empire to Europe qualifies as one of the most compelling works to appear in recent decades on the economic evolution of the United Kingdom since the end of the second world war. Geoffrey Owen, who has spent much of his career as a journalist, has made expert use of the historian's technique, writing individual monographs on specific industries, illustrating how they have fared since the Labour Party came to [...]