LATIN OR THE EMPIRE OF A SIGN: FROM THE SIXTEENTH TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURIES.

London: Verso, 2001. 346 pp, large 8vo (9 7/16" H) "(This) enthralling history of Latin in the modern period describes the institutional setting in which it was adopted, transmitted, promoted, defended, attacked and eventually relegated to the secondary, specialist status it has today. Defended with extraordinary tenacity by the Catholic Church and the academic world against the rationalist criticisms that it was inaccessible to the great majority of people, and inconvenient and time-consuming for the rest, it became the 'European sign' par excellence, as well as denoting a wide range of other phenomena: sacredness, but also obscenity and impropriety; learning, but also pedantry and charlatanism; science, but also trickery and mumbo-jumbo. Because of the status and the many roles historically attributed to Latin it became, for westerners, much more than a language, and until the last fifty years or so reached deeply into almost everyone's life. Waquet's brisk but detailed history of a language many centuries dead will amuse anyone who did Latin at school and intrigue many who didn't, as well as providing an obituary of the liturgical and neo-classical Latin of the modern period ." Dust jacket has very light edge wrinkling, is price-clipped, small edge tear at top of rear panel - archivally taped.. First British Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Very Good.