"Robert McCrum argues, brilliantly and provocatively, that England's greatest contribution to the world is English. The empire may be gone But Globish explains why the language still rules.""For as long as P. G. Wodehouse is read, this will be the seminal work of reference, the indispensable vade mecum. In other words---as the Master might say---`ripping."'"McCrum...has written a biography that, if the subject were a general or a politician, would be dubbed `magisterial.' This is a magisterial biography: disinterested, but never detached, and always intriguing. Under the kindly and scholarly tutelage of McCrum, you might want to explore here the Wodehouse genius, the inconsistencies and downright silliness in the man's life.""[An] absorbing and generous biography, which now takes its rightful place as `the life."'"This book is a triumph. Not only should all P.G. Wodehouse fans read it, but it is a masterly picture of twentieth-century history."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 pricipally, and most surprisingly, by the power of their common language.In his provocative and hugely enjoyable new cook, 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 Arglo-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 throug 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. Read Less