I'M WRITING this review from New York City, where people probably don't think about lighthouses very much. There is something called the “little red lighthouse” on the Hudson River under the George Washington Bridge, but it was deactivated in 1947. The closest functioning lighthouse to this city is at Montauk, on Long Island, about 100 miles away. Sailors and ship captains still depend on lighthouses, but most non-nautical types see them as relics of a bygone era, immortalised on picture postcards and in the paintings of artists such as Edward Hopper.

In Britain, however, lighthouses were - and still are - important. In Lighthouses: The Race to Illuminate the World, Toby Chance and Peter Williams write: “Most books about lighthouses dwell on how they were built and skim over the main reason for their existence - the light they produced.” Chance and Williams will change that, as they write about the light and how its beams were transmitted. Williams is a lighthouse enthusiast who has “served as an attendant for a Welsh lighthouse which still uses a first order Chance lens, fitted in 1868”. Toby Chance is a direct descendant of James Chance (1814-1902), whose firm, Chance Brothers, made the 300,000 panes of glass that gave the 1851 Great Exhibition's Crystal Palace its name and character, and, at that very exhibition, James Chance introduced the dioptric lens, 20ft high, with 430 prisms, and weighing four tons, the invention that would change the design of lighthouses for ever.

Before that, lighthouses were illuminated by candles and then oil lamps, whose light was amplified by every manner of reflector, but it was a Frenchman, Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1827), who is credited with the invention that immortalised his name and completely changed the way lighthouses broadcast their light. The Fresnel lens is a round glass plate carved into concentric rings, with each ring slightly thinner than the next and angled slightly differently, focusing the light from a lamp to the centre and then out over the horizon. The first use of Fresnel's design was the Cordouan lighthouse off southwest France in 1823; but a riv-alry developed between France and England to dominate the field, and the “race to illuminate the world” was on.

In thrilling (and somewhat excessive) detail, we follow the battle, conclusively won by Chance Brothers. By 1951, the centenary of its lighthouse works, Chance had supplied 2,300 lighthouses in 73 countries. This dominance coincided with the rise of the British Empire, so it is no surprise to learn that it provided 200 lighthouses in England, 167 in Scotland, 88 in Ireland, 319 in Australia, 137 in Canada and almost everywhere else that sailors needed to be aware of land. There were 23 in France.

This is a book filled with technical detail and unmitigated celebrations of Toby Chance's ancestors, but it is ultimately satisfying. It provides an unexpected window into a era we all know well - the rise of British sea power during the glory days of Empire - a view of Empire and the world through the dioptric lenses of Chance Brothers.

Lighthouses: The Race to Illuminate the World by Toby Chance and Peter Williams
New Holland, £17.99; 288pp Buy the book

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