Esperanto, spoken by thousands of people across the world, is the most successful international language project. In this book, the French linguist and literary critic Pierre Janton describes the history of Esperanto since its invention in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe and offers a comprehensive linguistic description of the language. This book is the best general introduction to Esperanto and its role in the modern world.

Rooted in the populism and internationalism of the late nineteenth century, Esperanto owes its origins in part to western European educational currents and in part...

If you want to know where the brothers Paul and George Soros got their business skills, look no further than this little adventure story told by their father. In simple, understated style, Tivadar Soros tells how he and his companions broke out of their Siberian prisoner-of-war camp at the time of the Russian Revolution and traveled on foot through inhospitable mountains to freedom. And this was just preparation for the equally horrendous conditions that Tivadar and his family endured in World War II. -- "As a schoolboy, I used to join my father in the swimming pool after school, and after...

Edmund Spenser's 'The Faerie Queene' is among the most important literary products of the Elizabethan age, and the vast sweep of its moral, political and social concerns tells us more about the age than any other work. This volume offers detailed readings of each of the poem's seven books, along with introductory chapters on Spenser's career, and the roots of the poem in the English and continental traditions.

This book examines the rise of the international language Esperanto, launched in 1887 as a proposed a solution to national conflicts and a path to a more tolerant world. The chapters in this volume examine the position of Esperanto in Eastern Europe during the Cold War; in particular it explores Stalin's final years and the gradual re-emergence of the Esperanto movement. At first, its revival was limited to the satellite countries, especially Bulgaria and Poland, but, with Stalinism's gradual retreat, Esperanto organizations reappeared in most East European countries and eventually in the...