50 years ago

A recent broadsheet issued by Political and Economic Planning, entitled “The Growing Economy—Britain, Western Germany and France”, discusses the main factors influencing the development of industrial production ... These findings are to be published in a forthcoming report which, assuming that economic growth is a proper object of policy, considers the conditions for achieving a rate of growth comparable with that of other Western industrial nations ... In contrast to British policy, French and German economic policies have had marked success in stimulating economic growth, and the main conclusion of the broadsheet is that, in view of Britain's record since the War, priority must be given to the task of increasing the rate of growth.

From Nature 19 November 1960

100 years ago

The Roosevelts in Africa — The book under review is not without its defects and incongruities, and the expedition of which it is the record has received heavy censure from a good many people interested in the preservation of the world's fauna. Theodore Roosevelt, its author, has the defects of his qualities ... In the first place, Mr. Roosevelt has not had sufficient leisure in which do himself justice as the writer of a book on real natural history. Being a poor man when he left the Presidency, he was obliged, to a great extent, to pay the expenses of his very costly expedition by writing an account of it to be published week by week by the newspapers, a full diary, so to speak, of the day's events. Then, taking advantage of a brief rest at Khartum, he puts this diary together in book form, and has barely time to glance at the proofs before leaving England for the States in June.

From Nature 17 November 1910