Two Words, One Answer.
Daylight Savings Time
 Super Thin 0.02" WorldTimeZone 3-D Reference Mousepad- 3 World Time Zone maps layered in 1 Reference Mousepad $9.99 The three dimensional (3-D) layered pad displays 3 individual full color maps with reference to: Cities / territories that correspond to the time zones. + / - GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) / UTC Time Zones difference. Daylight Saving Countries & Territories Map. Political / Administrative Boundaries Map. Time zone references in both 12 (A.M. / P.M.) and 24-hour formats.  Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time $14.95 Michael Downing's Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time is one of two books about Daylight Saving Time that were published in 2005, the other being Seize the Daylight by David Prerau. Downing and Prerau cover much of the same ground in their respective volumes, both authors detailing the complex history of DST since its adoption in England and the U.S. during World War I. But there are, of course, differences between the two books. Downing's is a shade more conversational in tone than Prerau's, and Downing seems to be less sold on the benefits of DST than Prerau, his relative negativity toward the time shift perhaps signaled in the "Madness" of his subtitle. Another difference between the two books is that Prerau's approach to telling the story of DST is primarily chronological, while Downing adopts more of a thematic approach to the subject. He offers chapters on DST and sports, for example, on New York City's role in the DST debate, and on the oddities of time management--sidereal days vs. solar days, solar months vs. lunar months, and so on. Certainly Downing provides information in Spring Forward that Prerau does not include in his book. Downing offers a fuller account of the 1966 U.S. legislation that regularized (more or less) DST, and he writes about the attempts of various Pacific island states to profit from the millennial celebrations by tinkering with their clocks. But on the whole Prerau's Seize the Daylight is the more thorough and informative of the two books. Prerau's approach to the subject is easier to follow and, frankly, his book is simply a more interesting read. If you have the time, as it were, by all means read both books. But if you're going to read just one book about DST, I recommend you make it Prerau's Seize the Daylight. Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003) |
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