Weak Endnotes

Roderick C. Morris,"Venetian spoken here," TLS, 12 December, reviews Ronnie Ferguson's A Linguistic History of Venice.

Simon Jenkins,"Milton the poet was a bore and a prig. But on liberty he was majestic," Guardian, 12 December, argues that John Milton remains an inspiration for freedom of speech.

David Blight,"The Slave Who Found a New World," Washington Post, 14 December, reviews Robert Goodwin's Crossing the Continent, 1527-1540: The Story of the First African-American Explorer of the American South.

Wendy Smith,"A Sect of Celibates," Washington Post, 14 December, reviews Jane Fletcher Geniesse's American Priestess: The Extraordinary Story of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalem.

Guy Gugliotta,"Chemistry and Morality," Washington Post, 14 December, reviews Thomas Hager's The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler.