Rating: 
Summary: Not quite enough depth or breadth for my taste.
Review: Longitude certainly isn't a bad story, just a somewhat constrained one. Within the scope of the book, the story is interesting and well researched. However, one should note that there is a bit more to the history of this solution for dependable navigation due to the problem of longitude than Dava Sobel adresses in this small history. This does not detract from the observation that Longitude is an entertaining and informative (and factually accurate) read nonetheless.
Rating:
Summary: Dramatic, but lacking vital details
Review: This account, of the 18th century invention of a device to accurately tell longitude, is one which is well worth discovering. The book starts by helpfully explaining why measuring longitude proved so difficult, in contrast to latitude (which was well documented by A.D. 150).The majority of the book's 175 pages, however, deals with two 18th century approaches used to measure longitude: astronomical and mechanical. At issue during this period were both accuracy and efficiency, and on both counts the mechanical approach was to be proven superior to the astronomical by 1828. The book's major weakness is that it never seriously engages with the task of explaining the scientific basis for either the mechanical or astronomical approaches. This is quite frustrating for the interested reader; especially as a number of claims and counter-claims are listed, without explanation or any other way to understand their accuracy. Many of these claims appear, rightly or wrongly, as though they have been merely copied verbatim from another source - without the author's being willing or able to comment on their veracity, or explain them in detail to the reader. As a result, there is a great deal too much detail for a narrative, yet far too little detail for a reasoned account. On a more minor point, the author's style is decidely anecdotal, and sometimes leaning to the dramatic or frivolous. Whether this is good or otherwise is entirely a matter for individual taste. Ideally, the book should be read quickly: if anything seems unclear, then one should merely keep reading without pause, for the reasons above. Yet my advice is to read the book by all means, as it gives an interesting perspective on an important chapter of progress.
Rating: 
Summary: Can't Put Down
Review: Maritime history and technology lovers, this tale gives us a humble appreciation of the challenges of exploration and ocean navigation before accurate time keeping was possible. It further delves into a methodical and patient pursuit of innovation, in the face of opposition and politics, to produce the chronograph.
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: Magnificent. Dava Sobel is better with words than anyone I have every read. The best.
Her wrtiting is so good that in one passage I actually cried from reading her description of a Harrisons H-1 (page 77)
In one paragraph she managed to tell the whole story of its making and its significance to the world.
For reasons to numerous to mention, you MUST read this book. You will close the back cover a better person.
Rating: 
Summary: Longitude...I Only Read It For Summer Reading
Review: This book by Dava Sobel is by the worst Summer Reading Book I have read since The Boxcar Series in 4th Grade. Although the two are totally different, they are also totally boring. The beginning of "Longitude" acted as a lullaby. Fortunately, I did learn about Harrison and Kendell and Makeslyne. The ending was the only good part because of the bitter battles with the Longitude Committee and personal enemies (not to mention it was the ENDING). I have only read one of Dava Sobel's pieces. I intend to keep it that way.
Rating:
Summary: Tremendous tale of the era's ultimate scientific challenge
Review: As exploration of the Earth reached its zenith, the most daunting problem for navigators was the inability to determine longitude - exact "horizontal" location on the globe, in navigational terms. After a devastating shipwreck off the coast of England - which resulted in thousands of lives lost - Parliament offered a stunning prize of 20,000 pounds sterling (the equivalent of perhaps $20 million today) to any person who could solve "the longitude problem". Over six decades, John Harrison - an exceedingly clever "horologist" (timepiece builder) - defied the conventional scientific wisdom of an astrological solution to the problem. Building a chronometer suitable for both wide temperature ranges and the continual pitch and yaw of maritime travel proved exceedingly difficult. Yet Harrison's creative attempts were stunningly accurate and unbelievably durable. How he built these complex devices - and handled the politically incorrect nature of his approach - is the story of Longitude. This is a wonderful, fast-moving read which covers a topic of surprising import.
Rating: 
Summary: Marvelous Account of Unknown History
Review: I had never even heard of or realized how important the ability to determine one's longitude is to navigation, in this age of the GPS. Yet the issue cost many thousands of lives and millions in treasure before one lone genius cracked the code. Dava Sobel's telling of the tale reopens this fascinating era in history, but it's not just the history that makes this a great book. Sobel's clean, crisp, writing makes this work zip by. Rather than a historical text, reading Sobel is more akin to listening to a skilled storyteller spin a tale by the fireplace at night. Sobel mixes historical facts with entertaining asides to give the reader an always entertaining, yet also educational experience. (Edu-tainment, as Homer Simpson might say.) In doing so, Sobel recreates this vital event in history in such fashion to perhaps even return knowledge of the event into more common knowledge. Longitude should be read because it recounts an important historical event. But Longitude deserves to be read because Sobel has written a damn entertaining story.
Rating:
Summary: don't waste your time
Review: This book, a disjointed ancedotal gobbelydygook of sweeping generalizations, innne ponderings and wretched science, is systematic of what happens when a layperson attempts to explain science. You could read this book 500 times and still never find out how the protogonist solved the greatest scienfic problem of his time. The author glosses over the answer to this question - which is the very thesis for this book - because she has no ability to understand the eureka moment of science. This book is a waste of trees.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointing read
Review: I had read the original article in Harvard Magazine when it had been published, and it was quite a good read. I bought the book with some anticipation; however, the book read as just a puffed up version of the magazine article. I agree with the other reviewers who found the book superficial. I'm actually surprised at the good reviews the book in general has received. I would not recommend it, although given how short it is, you won't be actually wasting a great deal of time by reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but quite biased
Review: A great topic to be sure, but the author deifies Hamilton, a clock maker who wins the final prize for determining longitude. No doubt about it: his clocks were great, but she is not fair in her comparison with other ways of determining longitude. The major competitor in the quest for longitude was Nevill Maskelyne and the method of lunars. I believe the author builds up the clock solution at the expense of lunars - they actually served as the main method of determining longitude from the late 1700s until about the mid 1800s in practice, as it took some time for clocks to become affordable. Someone needs to write a book about the method of lunars, whereby time (and thus longitude) is determined by using the moon as a clock through the use of a sextant. This solution actually has merit today since its chief problem then was lots of computation, something that a pocket calculator can do now in an instant.
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