Professor Jim Bennett
Before his current retirement, Professor Bennett’s employment was in museums with collections of scientific instruments: two nationals (the National Maritime Museum and the Science Museum) and two universities (Cambridge and Oxford). This naturally fostered an interest in instruments, which ran through his disciplinary focus on the physical and mathematical sciences, in particular astronomy, navigation and practical mathematics in general, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Working in museums allowed him to indulge a penchant for practical work through collections management and exhibitions.
Since retirement a deep involvement with the Hakluyt Society, which has been publishing scholarly editions of primary accounts of travel since 1847, has brought him into much broader historical work, including but extending beyond the history of science. He was President of the Society from 2016 to 2021.
Professor Bennett was awarded the Paul Bunge Prize by the German Chemical Society in 2001, the Physics Estoire Prize of the European Physical Society in 2018, and the Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society in 2020.
Navigation: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2017)
Navigation from Herodotus to GPS with a target of 36,000 words – a challenge.
From the Bronze Age mariners of the Mediterranean to contemporary sailors using satellite-based technologies, the history of navigation at sea, the art of finding a position and setting a course, is fascinating. The scientific and technological developments that have enabled accurate measurements of position were central to exploration, trade, and the opening up of new continents, and the resulting journeys taken under their influence have had a profound influence on world history.
In this Very Short Introduction Jim Bennett looks at the history of navigation, starting with the distinctive cultures of navigation that are defined geographically - the Mediterranean Sea, and the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans. He shows how the adoption of mathematical methods, the use of instruments, the writing of textbooks and the publication of charts all combined to create a more standardised practice. Methods such as longitude-finding by chronometer and lunar distance were complemented by the routine business of recording courses and reckoning position 'by account'. Bennett also introduces the incredible array of instruments relied on by sailors, from astrolabes, sextants, and chronometers, to our more modern radio receivers, electronic equipment, and charts, and highlights the crucial role played by the individual qualities of endeavour and resourcefulness from mathematicians, scientists, and seamen in finding their way at sea. The story of navigation combines the societal, the technical, and the human, and it was vital for shaping the modern world.
