Reviews

“Aaron Stark pulls back the curtain on perhaps the single most important case of industrial spying in the history of watchmaking – and one whose full details, incredibly, weren’t fully known until just last year.”

-Jack Forster, Watchbox.com & former Editor-in-Chief, HODINKEE

  • “So happy to see Aaron Stark’s research into the history of the Waltham Watch Company’s meteoric rise to world dominance in print! Congrats! A must read and a good story.”

    — Alexis McCrossen, Professor of History at SMU, author of “Marking Modern Times”, and frequently featured in media such as Planet Money (review copy)

  • “Aaron Stark says that it’s a book about watches, but it’s really a book about innovation, long-term thinking, and industrial policy. This is the book that you never knew you needed to read.”

    — Sinead O’Sullivan, The Currency News, and writer for the Financial Times (review copy)

  • "Disrupting Time is a fantastic story of real-life “watches of espionage.” It is a thrilling read, full of details that will change everything you thought you knew about the origin of Swiss watches - definitely not the narrative the watch industry has told you. If you are into watches, intelligence, history, or business, this book is a must read!"

    Anonymous former CIA Case Officer and man behind “Watches of Espionage”

  • "This is an excellent account of the remarkable events that took place at a time of great industrial change, driven by the cunning of spies, visionary business leaders and the choices that put the Swiss and American watch industries on opposite trajectories."

    — Andrew Canter, Journal of Antiquarian Horology, Vol 44, issue 1 (review copy)

  • "The book is fascinating and it does very much talk about the Swiss efforts to learn as much as they can, and frankly, not to put too fine a point on it, steal as much of the technical know-how and intellectual property...trade secrets, and whatever they'd need to do, and take it back to Switzerland. The rest is literally history...I think it upsets a few marketing stories and casts the entire [Swiss watch] industry in a different light."

    Matt McD., Spirit of Time podcast (review copy)

  • "Disrupting Time is the story of how Swiss watches became best in class and it's about industrial espionage in the late 1800's. That sounds like a pretty boring book. It is an amazing book. I highly, highly recommend to everyone."

    Carl Widger, TRAP: The real adviser podcast (finance podcast)

Listen/read interviews, reviews, and articles that feature author Aaron Stark or discuss Disrupting Time

Disrupting Time on display in Harvard Business School’s Baker Library

  • It’s not too much to say that without the efforts of David and Gribi – in many ways, the real fathers of modern industrial Swiss watchmaking – things could have gone from bad to worse and we’d be talking about Patek Philippe in the same wistful tones that fans of American watchmaking now talk about Waltham, Elgin and Hamilton – if we were talking about them at all.

  • Watches And Commercial Espionage: Waltham Watch Company. The connection between watches and the military, the dangers of commercial espionage and the influence of firearms manufacturing on the watch industry.

  • Feature interview with host Sinead O’Sullivan on the application of Disrupting Time to modern business and technological innovation.

  • On today's podcast, Chris is joined by author Aaron Stark, and they discuss Aaron’s book “Disrupting Time”, which looks at the battle between Swiss and American watch companies in the 1870s.

  • Article and book review by Spyscape Chief Story Officer, Caroline Byrne. Read the article here.

  • This week, Aaron Stark joins the show to discuss his new book Disrupting Time: Industrial Combat, Espionage, and the Downfall of a Great American Company, which chronicles an attempt by a foreign power to infiltrate, emulate, and eventually annihilate a great American company.

  • Book review by the Horological Times, the official publication of the American Watchmakers & Clockmakers Institute. You can read the review here (shared with permission).

  • Book review by Andrew Canter on Disrupting Time in the well-regarded Journal of Antiquarian Horology. (Unfortunately, access to the journal is paywall protected).

  • Host Michael Patrick Cullinane, a history professor, features Disrupting Time and hosts author Aaron Stark to read the first chapter of the book.

  • Host Matt McD provides an assessment of Disrupting Time and notes that it alters the view of the Swiss Watch Industry (and might ruin a few marketing narratives!)

  • Episode 99. Spycraft 101 Features Interviews With Authors, Historians, And Former Members Of The Military And Intelligence

    Communities Who Shed Light On How Espionage And Covert Operations Have Shaped Our Modern World.

  • Leading watch industry publication ABlogToWatch features Disrupting Time author for a full-hour interview with founder Ariel Adams.

  • Mr Watchmaster (Andrew Canter) provides a book review of Disrupting Time for die-hard horology enthusiasts.

  • Leading publication Wrist Watch Review provides an overview of Disrupting Time and features a chapter from the book, which details Jacques David’s time infiltrating the Waltham factory.

  • I joined Felix and Andy from Australia to tell the story of how Jacques David and Theo Gribi, two Swiss spies, traveled to America and actively worked to gather information on their American competition and develop a strategy to bring the Swiss industry into the 20th century.

  • Book review in the Horological Journal, the publication of the British Horological Institute.