How English Became the Global Language

In this book, the first written about the globalization of the English language by a professional historian, the exploration of English's global ascendancy receives its proper historical due. This brief, accessible volume breaks new ground in its organization, emphasis on causation, and conclusions.

"Languages spread as their speakers interact with other populations that become enticed or forced by various factors to learn and use them. They can travel long distances too, typically when they are associated with trans-territorial trade and/or colonial or imperial expansion.
Bridging his expertise on colonial history with especially the ethnography of communication and the economics of language, David Northrup engages the reader in a very informative global account of the spread of English as the world's first truly 'global lingua franca.' An intellectually stimulating must-read for students of globalization and language, of language endangerment, and of world Englishes."
—Salikoko S. Mufwene, The Frank J. McLoraine Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics and the College, University of Chicago, USA
"David Northrup presents a concise but broad and lively survey of the rise and spread of the English language over just under a millennium. A rather comprehensive introduction addresses disciplinary approaches to language, language history, layers of language, and shows how the English language got caught up in recent debates on imperialism. I believe this is quite an original work that will certainly draw attention and provoke wide discussion."
—Patrick Manning, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of World History,
University of Pittsburgh, USA
rom its dim origins among Germanic speakers in the British Isles, the English tongue spread for over a millennium through commerce, cultural exchange, and military conquest to become the de facto language of our modern, globalized world. From the Shanghai stock exchange to the United Nations to Internet message boards, whenever people reach out to one another across culture and geography, they do so overwhelmingly in English. Yet the remarkable story of its rise to global dominance has been curiously neglected by historians.
In this compact and engaging narrative-the first on the subject to be written by a professional historian-the tale of English's rise to global ascendancy is given its proper historical due. Moving beyond the familiar, Western-centric histories of the language's native speakers, author David Northrup explores how and why English has been so thoroughly embraced across the world Refreshingly, he also reestablishes simple human agency as a critical historical factor, showing that individuals acting in their own self-interest-rather than abstractions such as "capitalism" or "imperialism"-are what account for English's unprecedented worldwide reach.
David Northrup was Professor of History at Boston College for four decades and has published widely in African, Atlantic, and world history. He is the co-author of The Diary of Antera Duke: An Eighteenth-Century African Slave Trader (2010); author of Africa's Discovery of Europe, 1450-1850, Third Edition (2013), The Atlantic Slave Trade, Third Edition (2011), and Crosscurrents in the Black Atlantic, 1770-1965 (2007); and a contributor to the Oxford Handbook on the Atlantic World, c. 1450-1820 (2009) and the Oxford History of the British Empire (1988, 2004).