I don't know about standing the test of time. What you mean is that people of our age and generation can remember the likes of Alan Taylor and Toynbee (Arnold? Philip? Polly?), but are their ideas and conclusions still regarded as valid in the 21st century? They were of their time.

I can remember Taylor standing delivering his lectures on black and white TV, as other intellectuals like Bronowski and Kenneth Clark did. Nowadays you have to look pretty - apparently some people think Ferguson is quite presentable, and we've had Michael Wood in his bomber jacket and Bettany Hughes and various other dolly-bird females, and now this scientist guy who used to be in a rock group - or you have to be a cheesy, ingratiating, camped-up little creep like Simon Schama, to succeed as a TV intellectual.

Harry