Globish

It seems impossible: a small island in the North Atlantic, colonized by Rome, then pillaged for hundreds of years by marauding neighbors, becomes the dominant world power in the nineteenth century. Equally unlikely, a colony of that island nation, across the Atlantic, grows into the military and cultural colossus of the twentieth century. How? By the sword, of course; by trade and industrial ingenuity; but principally, and most surprisingly, by the power of their common language. In his provocative and hugely enjoyable new book, Robert McCrum takes us from the icy swamps of pre-Roman Britain to the shopping malls of Seoul to show how the language of the Anglo-American imperium has become the world's lingua franca. We learn how the world acquired its economics, its politics, and its sport -- industrialization, parliamentary democracy, and soccer -- from Britain's imperial quest; how American power further transformed the world through film, television, and advertising; and, most recently, how the forces of globalism and ever-accelerating technological change have made Globish the worldwide dialect of the third millennium. - Jacket flap.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.