Global English and Political Economy

John P. O’Regan is Professor of Critical Applied Linguistics at UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK. He is co-editor of Education and the Discourse of Global Neoliberalism (Routledge, 2021).

With this book, John O’Regan has mastered the art of engaging readers with his elegant and sharp scholarship, however complex the subject matter may be. He treats seriously and passionately the long overdue need to examine and document the political economic dimension of language, specifically in relation to the historical global dominance of English. In so doing, O’Regan challenges established and promoted bodies of work by questioning normative and in-fashion ideologies and thinking, seeing beyond oft-celebrated sentiments and positions in order to deliver a work that is not only thought-provoking, but also of great merit and intellectual weight.Phan Le Ha, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, BruneiA careful, comprehensive and critical study of the intertwined tentacles of English and capitalism. John O’Regan presents here the big and the long picture of the political economy of English, showing how the global dominance of English and the development of the capitalist world-system cannot be usefully considered in isolation. A study of real importance.Alastair Pennycook, University of Technology Sydney, AustraliaIn conclusion, with this seminal work on the historical and ongoing alliance of capitalism and a normative English in helping one another, O’Regan has indeed filled in a crucial ‘number of the historical and economic lacunae which have existed...in applied linguistic and sociolinguistic accounts of the spread of English as a global language’ (p. 2) not only for him as he states, but also importantly for many of us who have been calling out capitalism for what ithas been doing to us for the past several centuries.Christian W. Chun, Applied Linguistics 2021: 1–4Deeply insightful and intellectually stimulating, O’Regan’s book will be essential reading for scholars and students of applied linguistics, World Englishes, and associated fields of study.Pamoda M. Jayaweera, Language in SocietyThe book draws diverse yet highly relevant concepts together to present a case that should make us all stop and think about where ELT is heading. This book is likely to have considerable impact in informing future research into, and discussion of, the nature and purpose of English in the global context and is well worth reading.Steve Brown, ELT Journal, Volume 77, Issue 1, January 2023

• AcknowledgementsChapter 1The political economy of English in a capitalist world-systemChapter 2English and the political economy of informal empire, 1688–1850Chapter 3The political economy of global English, 1850–1914Chapter 4The political economy of global English, 1918–1979Chapter 5Capital-centric English and the modern world-system, 1979–2008Chapter 6The decline of the US world-hegemonyChapter 7Superdiverse translingualism, commodification and trans-spatial resistancesChapter 8The demise of capitalism and the end of the hegemony of EnglishReferencesIndex