John E. Joseph is Professor of Applied Linguistics in the University of Edinburgh's School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences. He is co-editor of the journal Language and Communication, and associate editor of Historiographia Linguistica. His books include Saussure (2012), Language and Politics (2006), Language and Identity (2004), From Whitney to Chomsky (2002), Limiting the Arbitrary (2000) and Eloquence and Power (1987), along with articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics in linguistics. He began his university studies in medicine, and this book is the fruition of many years of study and reflection on language in relation to the body.

• 1. Purification and hybrids; 2. Language incorporated; 3. Language in body and mind: antiquity; 4. Middle Ages; 5. Renaissance; 6. Eighteenth century; 7. Nineteenth century; 8. The (we have never been) modern Age; 9. Abstract and concrete language; 10. Conclusion.

'Joseph vividly defamiliarizes linguistic categories we are accustomed to - abstract and concrete, langue and parole, embodied cognition, even language and mind. Rereading our histories, he rethinks what's at stake when we affirm a 'discipline' of linguistics.' Mark Amsler, University of Auckland