The book’s potentially dry material is vivified by engaging, sometimes dramatic prose, and the complex tangle of rivalries and relationships is fascinating. Discussions on lexicography are technical without being abstruse, and they balance well with the biographical details. Historically informative, the book is also an opportunity for American self-reflection. Substitute 'internet' or 'social media' for 'newspapers' or 'pamphlets,' and several passages of The Dictionary Wars could have been pulled from some modern-day editorial or blog lamenting the destruction of public discourse. There is, after all, nothing new under the sun. With an impressive breadth of research, The Dictionary Wars invites contemplation of the ways in which language itself can affect the soul of a nation.

All the conflict and commotion...is wonderfully told ... [and] vividly clear ... For a tale of lexicographic intrigue, Mr. Martin’s book is unexcelled—and the narrative moves briskly.

The story of how so many dictionaries in America came to be known, generically, as Webster’s—a triumph of branding if there ever was one—is among the intriguing lore gathered in Peter Martin’s engaging and informative, if at times a little cluttered, The Dictionary Wars, with forays into copyright law, educational policy, religious revivalism, and other pressures on the verbal life of the nation ... Martin characterizes the Merriam brothers as 'ruthless,' a word defined in the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary ('since 1828,' according to the website) as 'having no pity: merciless, cruel.' That seems a generous assessment of what they did to [lexicographer Joseph] Worcester and other rivals.

Martin’s book includes a substantial amount of archival research which will undoubtedly be a boon to scholars of the dictionary wars. His research fleshes out the biographies of some of the players ... There are nuanced arguments to be made about this era and this rivalry. It is a shame, then, that Martin flattens Worcester and Webster—and therefore the story—into Good Lexicographer and Bad Lexicographer ... There are grains of truth in all these depictions, but Martin’s commitment to the Worcester-as-underdog narrative leads him into some shaky scholarly territory. Martin often waves away charges against Worcester that should be investigated ... Martin also indulges in some logical leaps not supported by textual evidence ... There is, however, a more significant problem to contend with: the book contains many errors, particularly quotations from easily accessible primary sources ... The typos, misconstructions and mistakes to be found are so numerous as to cast doubt on the accuracy of the transcribed manuscript and archival material that Martin uses and which the reader can’t check. Moreover, Martin selectively edits many of his quotations, sometimes sloppily, in ways that mislead the reader.

Webster and the development of American English have been the subject of many books. The particular strength of Peter Martin’s is his exhaustive excavation of the letters and newspaper polemics of the time. The result not only gives us the gunpowder-whiff of the dictionary battles, but brings to life its combatants: Webster, Worcester, the Merriams and Chauncey Goodrich, Yale professor of theology and rhetoric, Webster’s son-in-law and fashioner of his legacy.

Martin has read his way through yards of books and pamphlets...though the story also requires him to document numerous business transactions and personal vendettas going on outside the public’s view. The disputes are not now of uniform interest. But once the author steps back for a moment to indicate how closely the American mass media of the day was following the conflict, the level of detail becomes compelling.

In vivid detail, drawing on prodigious archival sources, the author follows the efforts of two strong-willed men who devoted their lives to the [dictionary] ... An informative and often pleasantly surprising cultural history.

... [a] lively, if overly granular, history ... Martin spends less time on seismic cultural shifts than on the gritty details of how the battle between Webster and Worcester’s opposing dictionaries played out in advertising campaigns and on newspaper editorial pages. Extensively quoting from contemporary sources, he dramatizes Webster as a 'herculean but unscientific' crusader for the standardization of American English, and Worcester as a serious-minded scholar wearied by a 'degradingly shabby commercial war' ... though the central conflict eventually becomes repetitive. Martin never quite delivers the bigger picture promised at the book’s start, but anyone who loves words for their own sake will be entertained.