He called this period prelife, and characterized it as a "generative system that can produce information."

Bernard called this period "the season of calamities."

I have called this period, 1632-39, one of preparation, and not of production.

I called this period-basicallythe 1960s-theGolden Age of Valley climbing, and no one seems to have disputed this.

The historian R. W. Southern called this period "scientific humanism" (in "Flesh and Stone" by Richard Sennett, London, Faber and Faber, 1994).