Latin

Françoise Waquet is director of research emeritus at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. Latin, or the Empire of a Sign is the opening volume in a highly praised sequence of books on the social worlds of intellectuals, continued most recently with Une histoire émotionnelle du savoir (2019).

Waquet's wonderful, readable book (in Howe's fine translation) provides an intellectual history of the Latin language ... Waquet memorably charts Latin's reception in scholarly, comic, tender, and exhaustive detail through learned literary, and popular sources.