The Adventure of English
by Melvyn Bragg |
A History of the English Language
by Albert C. Baugh |
The Stories of English
by David Crystal |
Our Marvelous Native Tongue
by Robert Claiborne |
Blooming English
by Kate Burridge | 
The Fight for English
by David Crystal | 
The Mother Tongue
by Bill Bryson | 
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue
by John McWhorter | 
The Language Wars
by Henry Hitchings |
By Hook or By Crook
by David Crystal | 
The American Language
by H. L. Mencken | 
Empires of the Word
by Nicholas Ostler | 
Word on the Street
by John McWhorter | 
Alpha Beta
by John Man | 
Crazy English
by Richard Lederer | 
Globish
by Robert McCrum |
Wodehouse
by Robert McCrum | 
Dead Wake
by Erik Larson | 
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs | 
One Summer: America, 1927
by Bill Bryson |
Now revised, The Story of English is the first book to tell the whole story of the English language. Originally paired with a major PBS miniseries, this book presents a stimulating and comprehensive record of spoken and written English--from its Anglo-Saxon origins some two thousand years ago to the present day, when English is the dominant language of commerce and culture with more than one billion English speakers around the world. From Cockney, Scouse, and Scots to Gulla, Singlish, Franglais, and the latest African American slang, this sweeping history of the English language is the essential introduction for anyone who wants to know more about our common tongue.