English Begins at Jamestown is an original and thought-provoking take on how to write the history of English. With wit and verve it explores the often unspoken intellectual underpinnings of the enterprise and it should be required reading for all those interested in the history of any language.
Tim William Machan is Mary Lee Duda Professor of Literature at the University of Notre Dame. He has published widely on historical linguistics, multilingualism, reception, and textual criticism, and on medieval English, Norse, and French literature. His previous books with OUP include Language Anxiety: Conflict and Change in the History of English (2009) and What Is English? And Why Should We Care? (2013; paperback
2016).