Navigational Enterprises in Europe and its Empires, c. 1730-1880

Navigational Enterprises in Europe and its Empires, 1730-1850 brings together the work of international authors to explore European experiences in the development of new navigational techniques and instruments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is the period in which the 'longitude problem' has been presented as being solved in an unproblematic way. Challenging this narrative, the book looks beyond just the British story to examine the role of governments, institutions, men of science, practitioners and navigators across Europe, and the use of the new and old techniques and instruments in practice. As the different chapters show, the methods available, including long-established navigational techniques such as dead reckoning and the newer astronomical and timekeeping methods of longitude determination, were complementary rather than exclusive. When and how they were used depended on local, national and other circumstances, although their development must be seen as the result of international and transnational exchanges.