Time: Its Origin, Its Enigma, Its History

The agile narrative in this extraordinarily informative and always entertaining book examines the mysteries of time and chronicles the human struggle to measure, utilize, understand, and explain it. The cast of characters in the tale ranges from the primitive homo erectus to modern time explorers, from Zeno to Caesar to Pope Gregory, Galileo, Einstein and Stephen Hawking; and their stage is the world, the universe, the galaxy. Starting with the creation, when time began -- perhaps with a big bang, maybe in a garden called Eden -- the book records the flops and follies, triumphs and fears, crackpot theories and wondrous discoveries that have shaped the way we today conceive of time and tell it. And with atomic clocks, the author notes, we can tell it with an accuracy that loses only a second every 316,000 years. On the other hand, no one noticed for ninety-nine years that a sundial in ancient Rome was recording time incorrectly. Calendars, eons, minutes, eternity -- no element of time is overlooked in this enlightening book that is as rich in anecdote as it is comprehensive in knowledge.

Alexander Waugh was formerly the chief opera critic at the Mail on Sunday and the Evening Standard.