This important book examines the role of written and spoken language in shaping our sense of reality, in exchanges of social life, and in fashioning our sense of self. It develops a distinctive, socio-historical approach to these issues, offering a range of illuminating studies in the social history of language.

The first section discusses the history of specially charged languages (Latin, Hebrew, and the speech-forms of the Quakers). The second section examines the politics of language, paying special attention to dialect and the relations between the language of conquerors and the conquered. In the third section, the relation between forms of expression and the development of personal self-definition is discussed.

This key work will make a major contribution to the interdisciplinary study of language. It will be of interest to students and researchers in social history, linguistics, and the history and sociology of language.

Peter Burke is a Reader in Cultural History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Roy Porter is a Professor of the History of Medicine at The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine.