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The Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery of the Earth's Antiquity
There are three men whose lifes observations on his small tract of land led him to a theory that directly contradicted biblical claims that the Earth was only 6,000 years old. This expertly crafted narrative tells the story not only of Hutton, but also of Scotland and the Scottish Enlightenment, including many of the greatest thinkers of the age, such as David Hume and Ada...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
May 5th 2009
by Basic Books
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This book is about James Hutton, who is known as the Father of Geology. It goes through his life, how he came to his monumental theories, and how they eventually came to be accepted. Little is actually known about the life of Hutton, and I felt the author did a good job not dwelling on theories of what he *might* have been up to, but instead filling in the gaps with historical tidbits that gave the book a global feel. Topics touched on in the book ranged from famous people (such as Darwin, Hume...more
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I picked up this book during my recent trip to Edinburgh, and it quickly became my favorite companion. I'd wanted to learn more about James Hutton (father of geology!), especially since I was visiting the very city where he'd given his startling lectures in 1785 pronouncing the Earth as "immeasurably old" -- much older than the then-accepted age of 6,000 years! And indeed, this book delivers. It tells a great and gripping story---or rather, several stories.
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Other review...more
What a pleasant surprise; I picked it up as a quick read while waiting for a requested book to be returned to the library. It is not so much the story (it is far too general to be a biography) of James Hutton, the father of modern geology who established the antiquity of the earth in the late eighteenth century, as an overview of the Scottish Enlightenment and of the many men of insight and imagination who inhabited Edinburgh and environs at that time. Repcheck's prose never bogs down as so ma...more
I picked up The Man Who Found Time at a HPB for cheap because it looked like the sort of book I tend to enjoy reading: nonfiction, on a somewhat obscure, quirky, or otherwise odd subject, and the veritable Title: Subtitle format.
In the end, the book provided me with a much more in depth account of the beginnings of geology and the man who is widely considered to be its father than I would have expected for such a small and relatively short book. It did tend to lean more towards geolo...more
In the end, the book provided me with a much more in depth account of the beginnings of geology and the man who is widely considered to be its father than I would have expected for such a small and relatively short book. It did tend to lean more towards geolo...more
The book is in part a biography of the 18th century British geologist James Hutton and also a description of cyclical theory of geology, and also describes its influence on future geologists, especially Lyell, a leading British geologist of the middle third of the 1830s.. Without Lyell, Hutton might have been forgotten. Some minor factual errors
The object of this book is to make people think of James Hutton (who most folks haven't heard of) whenever they think of Isaac Newton or Charles Darwin. As an added bonus, the book connects the three. Neat.
Remarkably wide ranging. Evolution, geology, and the history of Scotland. Just why did Scotland join the Union with England and Wales? Debt for a failed construction project in the new world!
A great read, and concise is nice. Interesting to see how Hutton laid the "groundwork" for future discoveries.
Some good back facts on the Scottish Enlightenment, but overall this book was just EH. The author's writing style was particularly lacking, and he kept repeating himself. It also seemed like there hasn't been enough preserved information about Hutton's life to make an accurate biography, so the book was filled with hypotheses and generalities.
I gave it the extra star solely because the first couple chapters (albeit having nothing to do with James Hutton or geology) were pretty cool ...more
I gave it the extra star solely because the first couple chapters (albeit having nothing to do with James Hutton or geology) were pretty cool ...more
I can't wait to visit Edinburgh, and rediscover the original clues to the realization of earth's great age, right under my feet.
my uncle jack's first major book :D so proud of him!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Scottish scientific renaissance. Who knew?
I'm a fan of readable history, especially people-related history. And, having never heard of James Hutton, but being assured by the back cover of the book that he ranked alongside Darwin, Galileo and Copper-knickers, I was intrigued.
It's a fast easy read and an interesting biography of the man who discovered that the world was a good deal more than 6,000 years old. Fortunately for him, he did this in an era when heretics were no longer burned at the stake.
It's a fast easy read and an interesting biography of the man who discovered that the world was a good deal more than 6,000 years old. Fortunately for him, he did this in an era when heretics were no longer burned at the stake.
Excellent book describing the life of James Hutton who was among the first to prove the Earth was older than the Bible says. Hutton's findings were apparently important to Darwin when writing Origin of the Species, all because he found fossils of seashells and other small sea creatures high on a mountain side and couldn't justify the runoff and sedimentary erosion over 6000 years.
Well-written, entertaining, full of interesting tidbits about the world.
Well-written, entertaining, full of interesting tidbits about the world.
Recomended to me by a friend, this short biography about the father of modern geology was engaging, inspiring and offers a very wide view into the life and times of not only Hutton but also his contemporaries. I am confident that this book has the potential to captivate the geologist and non-geologist audience.
Probably due to the fact that there just isn't much information about James Hutton, this book was more of a history of the times and places he lived. It didn't have the excitment factor that some other science biographies do.
This was a really good book. It wasn't as much of a page-turner as Winchester's "The Map that Changed the World," but it was still engaging and interesting.
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