The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language

“An essay in origins … as theoretical as Hawking and Gorst in trying to see into the deep past. McWhorter is a clear and witty writer.”— Harper’s

In the first book written for the layperson about the natural history of language, linguistic professor John McWhorter ranges across linguistic theory, geography, history, and pop culture to tell the fascinating story of how thousands of very different languages have evolved from a single, original source in a natural process similar to biological ...