To the Editors:

William McNeill’s letter [“Alive!” NYR, November 18, 2004] relieves me of the necessity of repeating Mark Twain’s well-known remark on learning of his own demise, but I’d be grateful for the opportunity of correcting another error in his review of Bob Fogel’s recent book [“Bigger and Better,” NYR, October 21, 2004]. Roderick Floud, a most distinguished scholar whose work I greatly admire, has never been my junior colleague and is not, as is asserted in the text, carrying on the research program which I helped to initiate.

Tony Wrigley

Cambridge, England

This Issue

January 13, 2005