Book description
The mother tongue of the Roman Empire and the lingua franca of the West for centuries after Rome's fall, Latin survives today primarily in classrooms and texts. Yet this "dead language" is unique in the influence it has exerted across centuries and continents. Jurgen Leonhardt has written a full history…
- Coming soon!
Why read it?
1 author picked Latin as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I never considered myself a nerd, so why do I love Latin? (which I hated in school) It’s because I Iove seeing, and love teaching, what languages can do – culturally, socially, politically.
Leonhardt’s Latin: Story of a World Language gives us sweeping new perspectives. For 1000 years after the Romans, Latin was the intellectual glue of Europe, and a key to the sciences and humanities down through the 19th century. The new prestige of French, Italian, English, and the other European vernaculars in some ways threw up huge barriers.
If only Latin grammar and syntax weren’t, aargh, so challenging…
From Lewis' list on the story of a language.
If you love Latin...
Aggressor
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Want books like Latin?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 9 books like Latin.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,211
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like Latin, you might also like...
Old Man Country
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
Lane and the Inventor
A grumpy-sunshine, slow-burn, sweet-and-steamy romance set in wild and beautiful small-town Colorado. Lane Gravers is a wanderer, adventurer, yoga instructor, and social butterfly when she meets reserved, quiet, pensive Logan Hickory, a loner inventor with a painful past.
Dive into this small-town, steamy romance between two opposites who find love…
