John Farrell: The Clock and the Camshaft

THE CLOCK AND THE CAMSHAFT
AND OTHER MEDIEVAL INVENTIONS
WE STILL CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT
John W. Farrell
Prometheus Books, May 29, 2020, $19.00; Kindle, $10.49
ISBN-10: 1633885720; ISBN-13: 978-1633885721
ASIN: B07P9MQFPS

Farrell reports:

The Clock and the Camshaft is a popular history of medieval inventions, from the vertical watermill to the weight-driven clock, from the invention of paper to the development of the codex and the book, from the nautical compass to the first eye-glasses.

Most of these inventions, emerging between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, had a huge impact on the lives of ordinary people, especially those in the fledgling nations of Medieval Europe who had struggled for centuries to survive after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

I initially researched the idea for a book on the more narrow topic of the history of science in the Middle Ages. As I worked on it and got feedback from publishers who turned it down, I broadened the topic to the history of technical inventions of the era. The importance of the translation movements and the rise of the universities, as I discuss in the finished book, were key developments for the later Renaissance as well as the Scientific Revolution which occurred in the seventeenth century. The translation movements crucially re-introduced the key works of philosophy, science and medicine of the classical tradition of ancient Greece and Rome that had been lost to the West after the fall of the Roman empire.

This is my second book, so from the start I put my proposal together with the help of my agent and an independent editor who read and suggested revisions. We submitted to several publishers over the course of a few years (more than I’d like to admit!). It was a frustrating process, with some publishers taking months to make up their minds before they passed. We finally landed the book with an editor at Globe Pequot/Prometheus who was very enthusiastic.

I highly recommend that aspiring authors hire a professional editor to work with them on their book proposals. Above all, I encourage every writer to be persistent. Don’t be afraid to submit your work to editors who will be honest about its potential, and keep submitting it until it finds a home.

Contact info:

• John Farrell: johnwfarrell@gmail.com, john@farrellmedia.com, https://www.farrellmedia.com/, @johnwfarrell
• Book: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781633885721/The-Clock-and-the-Camshaft-And-Other-Medieval-Inventions-We-Still-Can't-Live-Without
• Publicist: Jessica Kastner, 203-458-4511, jkastner@rowman.com

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