Gary Dicks - 03/02/2010

The fourth edition of 'A Short History of Linguistics' does what it says on the tin, so to speak. Concise would be a fair way to describe it but conciseness is relative and if you're expecting a short history of linguistics in three easy steps, this is not for you. However, if you want a balanced and in-depth account of the history of linguistic thought, this book is possibly the only one you'll find that can do it all seamlessly, meaning you won't necessarily have to scrabble through half a dozen other books too.

Robins writes as a linguist, an historian and an overall intellectual, which some will find off-putting, but, with reference to his field, it seems very apt to me.