Sundials

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His lively pen, direct style, expressive vocabulary, avoidance of pedantry, and concise exposition make this book a pleasure to read. The story of humanity's quest to measure time spans thousands of years, beginning with the sundial, one of the earliest timekeeping instruments. This expert study offers a captivating account of these ancient devices in accessible language. Over the centuries, various sundials have been constructed, and the author provides detailed descriptions of classical sundials, inclined dials, solar calendars, analemmatic dials, moon dials, and more. A chapter is dedicated to remarkable dials from the past and present, along with a list of popular sundial mottoes. This richly illustrated volume not only explores the sundial's long and colorful history but also teaches readers how to build one themselves. No special knowledge is required beyond a basic understanding of cosmography and the movements of the sun and planets, which are explained in a dedicated chapter. For those with a mathematical inclination, the book includes complex formulas and calculations, some of which are unique to this work on gnomonics.