Bragg Melvyn. The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language

Bragg Melvyn. The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language. NY: Arcade Publishing, 2011. 322 p.
An excellent complement to the audiobook and the series. Here is the riveting story of the English language, from its humble beginnings as a regional dialect to its current preeminence as the one global language, spoken by more than two billion people worldwide. In this groundbreaking book, Melvyn Bragg shows how English conquered the world.Introduction ix
1 The Common Tongue 1
2 The Great Escape 16
3 Conquest 32
4 Holding On 40
5 The Speech of Kings 52
6 Chaucer 66
7 God’s English 76
8 English and the Language of the State 89
9 William Tyndale’s Bible 99
10 A Renaissance of Words 109
11 Preparing the Ground 121
12 Shakespeare’s English 132
13 My America 144
14 Wild West Words 161
15 Sold Down the River 176
16 Mastering the Language 188
17 The Proper Way to Talk 207
18 Steam, Streets and Slang 224
19 Indian Takeover 236
20 The West Indies 251
21 Advance Australia 261
22 Warts and All 272
23 All Over the World 281
24 And Now.? 290
Acknowledgments 297
Picture Acknowledgments 301
Bibliography 303
Index 313
Photographs follow pages 82, 130, 178, and 226