The main point is to question whether the biographical facts of a writer's life are of any importance in evaluating his work. Hemingway is the example used here, and there does seem to be a direct connection between the events of his life and those in his books, but knowing this should not get in the way of a true critical judgement of the works.
The writer Ernest Hemingway had a particularly eventful and exciting life and a lot of his real-life experiences got into his books. The speaker thinks this is irrelevant and doesn't believe that having lived such a full life makes the books any better, but he regrets that people now would prefer to read the biographies of writers rather than the books they wrote.
It is difficult to tell whether the speaker approves of Hemingway's lifestyle or not. He was famously macho and spent a lot of time hunting wild animals, going to wars and getting into fights. All these things got into his books, and the speaker thinks that this is not necessarily a good thing as it means that too many people prefer to read about his life than read his books.

The subject is culture and the two kinds of it - material, which is to do with technology and science, such as genetics, and non-material, which is basically what we think about it, our beliefs and so forth. The speaker's main point is how our beliefs and attitudes resist developments in the material culture even when they know they are beneficial.
In comparing material with non-material culture - the first being the objects and technologies we create, and the second our customs, beliefs and attitudes - the speaker gives greater emphasis to the material culture. He gives the example of the development of genetic science and the benefits it has brought to mankind, despite a fair amount of opposition.
For the purposes of argument, culture is divided into material and non-material, and the speaker's aim is to show how they both affect each other. Material developments in tools and technology can affect non-material culture, our customs and beliefs, and the other way around. Genetics is used as an example as it has changed the way we think about life, but also our beliefs have affected its rate of development.

To understand the past you have to be able, as far as possible, to think as the people in the period you are studying thought. The example of what it must have been like to be a peasant in the Middle Ages is used. However, sensibilities change over time and we can't completely throw off the mentality of the present. Therefore, every age will have a slightly different perspective on the same period of the past, no matter what the facts are.
The text explains how, in order to understand people in the historical period they are studying, a historian must have the same ability the novelist has to get into the minds of characters. This is due to the fact that the world was different then, and the ways of thinking have changed, for example, between the Middle Ages and the 21st century. He explains this by saying historian's sensibilities change over time.
As a historian, if you really want to understand the sensibilities of those who lived in the past, you must be like a novelist and get into the skins of your characters and think and feel as they do. You are asked to imagine what it's like to be a peasant in medieval times, asking the sort of questions a peasant might ask. What the writer is saying is that a historian needs imaginative sympathy with ordinary people in the past.

The speaker is a trained marine biologist who became an anthropologist after hearing about an ancient people who lived on beaches and got their food from the sea. Because he was a keen fisherman, he identified with these people and began to study anthropology. They lived in a very simple way, catching fish with their hands and gathering shells, such as oysters.
The speaker is a marine biologist who became interested in the Strandlopers, an ancient people who lived on the coastline, because of their and his connection to the sea. Their way of life intrigued him - as a child he had spent a lot of time by the sea, exploring and collecting things - so he began to study them, and discovered some interesting information about their way of life, how they hunted, what tools they used, and so on.
The speaker is a marine biologist who became an archaeologist when he heard about a mythical people called the Strandlopers, or beach-walkers. He was interested in them because as a child he had lived by the sea and so he identified with them. His aim was to prove they were not a myth and set about finding evidence to prove they really existed, and in this he was successful.

There are three main interpretations of the English Revolution. The longest lasting interpretation was that the Revolution was the almost inevitable outcome of an age-old power struggle between parliament and crown. The second sees it as a class struggle, and a lead-up to the French and other revolutions. Finally, the third interpretation sees the other two as too fixed, not allowing for unpredictability, and that the outcome could have gone either way.
The speaker reminisces about his views of the English Revolution when he was a student and how it seemed quite clear which side he was on - the aristocrats', not the puritans'. Later he realised there was more to it than that and there were several ways of interpreting the Revolution: as a struggle between the king and parliament, as a class war or as an unpredictable situation without clear sides.
The English Revolution has been interpreted in several ways by historians: as a fight between the aristocratic Cavaliers, who were open to life, and the serious Puritans; as a battle for power between parliament and the monarchy over the rights of Englishmen that had been going on for centuries; and as a class war similar to the French Revolution, of which it was a forerunner.

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