Globish

Globish: How the English Language Became the World’s Language
Robert McCrum

What might have been an interesting short essay on the globalization of the “contagious, adaptive, populist and subversive” English language expands into a general history of the English-speaking peoples in this far-ranging and superficial survey. Though it comes to life briefly at the end, most of it is surprisingly dull and pointless, especially coming from as intelligent and insightful a writer as McCrum. An update, but in no other way an improvement on The Story of English, a book he co-authored 25 years ago.