An unusual and authentic book about the "natural history of languages" that tells the ways in which one language has surpassed or survived another over various periods in history.

The history of the world over the last five thousand years is above all the history of its languages. A common language is what binds every community together and enables both the survival of a communal history and its narration.

At the same time, the history of the great languages of the world is rarely examined. "Empires of the Word" is the first to gather the narratives in all their glorious variety: the astonishing innovations—in education, culture, and diplomacy—that speakers in the Middle East devised; the incredible resilience of Chinese languages over twenty centuries of assaults; the journey of Sanskrit from northern India to France and Japan; the struggle that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe; and the global spread of English.

Aside from these epic achievements, the failures of languages are equally fascinating: why did Germany fall behind? Why did Egyptian, which survived foreign occupations for three thousand years, succumb to the Arabic of Muhammad? Why are Dutch unknown in modern Indonesia, given that the Netherlands ruled the East Indies for as long as the British ruled India?

As this book reveals, the linguistic history of the world strikingly reflects the true characters of its peoples. It also proves that the language of the future will be, like the languages of the past, full of surprises.

Pages: 688, Dimensions: 15.3x15.3cm