Saving the Daylight: Why We Put the Clocks Forward [Hardcover]

'Compelling characters and unusual anecdotes inhabit an enjoyable book...I'll never think of seasonal time changes the same way again'

Benjamin Franklin conceived of it. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle endorsed it. Winston Churchill campaigned for it. Kaiser Wilhelm first employed it. Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt went to war with it. Every spring, the clocks go forward, and every autumn they go back. Saving the Daylight explores for the first time the contentious, and often entertaining, story of this deceptively simple attempt to regulate the sunlight hours. Throughout its surprisingly controversial history, DST has been claimed to impact a wide variety of diverse and often unexpected areas, including agricultural practices, the reporting of sports scores, street crime, voter turnout and many other, sometime unexpected aspects of daily life. The book brings together the historical, political, and technical aspects of the fascinating story behind the movement for DST, with many lighter and offbeat anecdotes.

David Prerau has a PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is one of the world's foremost experts on daylight saving time. He has authored/co-authored three extensive U. S. Government reports to Congress on DST, and has written two books, Developing and Managing Expert Systems and Worldwide Intelligent Systems.