The author of the biographies Samuel Johnson and A Life of James Boswell recounts the patriotic fervor in the early American republic to produce a definitive national dictionary. But what began as a cultural war of independence from Britain devolved into a battle among lexicographers, authors, scholars, and publishers, all vying for dictionary supremacy and shattering forever the dream of a unified American language.
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.
