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Until recently, sailing ships were the world’s most powerful technology. Wind was oil; the world ran on it. Understanding it, men ruled trade, won wars and colonized nations.

Sir Francis Beaufort, an ingenious 19th century admiral, set out to qualify and quantify this unseen natural force for the glory of the Crown. The result was the Beaufort scale, a succinct 110-word gem of lucid, descriptive prose still in use today.

Scott Huler’s obsession with the scale is a match for Beaufort himself. Part history, part textbook, part memoir, “Defining the Wind” explores how we think about the currents that shape sea and landscapes. Daniel Defoe, Charles Darwin and Capt. John Smith make appearances, but Beaufort commands center stage. Confronted by pirates and cyclones, he holds fast to his level and sextant, his pen and ink, the tools of the hydrographer’s trade. A “man who always liked to know where he was,” Beaufort triumphantly and economically nailed the wind.

-- Susan Dworski