There are three men whose contributions helped free science from the straitjacket of theology. Two of them - Nicolaus Copernicus and Charles Darwin - are widely know and justly heralded for their breakthroughs. The third, James Hutton, never achieved the same recognition, yet he profoundly changed our understanding of the Earth and the dynamic forces that have shaped it.
It was Hutton who proved that our planet was millions of years old rather than the biblically determined 6,000, and he who showed that it was continuously being shaped and re-shaped by myriad everyday forces rather than one cataclysmic event.
In this expertly crafted narrative, Jack Repcheck tells the remarkable story of this Scottish gentleman farmer, and explores how Hutton's simple observations on his small tract of land led him to a theory that flew in the face of the Bible's teaching and also provided the scientific proof that would spark Darwin's theory of evolution. It is also a story of the Scottish Enlightenment, which brought together some of the greatest thinkers of the age, from David Hume and Adam Smith to James Watt and Erasmus Darwin.
And running through the narrative is a theme about the power of the written word. Repcheck argues that Hutton's work was lost to history because he could not describe his findings in graceful and readable prose - unlike Darwin's 'On The Origin Of Species', for example, Hutton's one and only book was impenetrable, and consequently its message was never embraced by a general audience.
A gripping and enlightening exploration of a little-known man and the science he founded, 'The Man Who Found Time' is also a parable about the power of books to shape the history of ideas.
