Firms want to know three things: whether big storms are becoming more or less common, whether certain coasts are being hit more or less often, and just how frequent are the biggest of the big storms the ones whose effects could break a careless insurance outfit.

ECONOMIST: Eye on the storm | The

It might be thought unfortunate that these two excellent biographies have appeared more or less simultaneously, but in fact they have surprisingly little in common.

ECONOMIST: Historical biography