The Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientists (Helicon, £30, ISBN 1 85986 048
6) is a sober title for an enthralling work. Dip into it and you’re hypnotised.
It amounts to a history of world development from the earliest times, in
gulpable titbits, and is astonishingly compendious and laced with quotations.
Rightly, the term “scientists” is taken in the widest sense, so Jacuzzi,
Gagarin, Lindbergh, Captain Cook and even Hildegard of Bingen appear in its
pages. An inspiring dictionary?
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