Babel, or The Necessity of Violence

This book professes the authors love to language and tackles very important topics which are still current today although the time setting is early to mid 19th century and thus the peak of the British empire - with all the good and bad that entails.

Somehow I felt this book was divided into two books and my opinion on that is somewhat divided.
First you have the linguistics and translations which are the foundation of this Oxford's magic. As a fellow translator I loved the display of the power of translation and understanding other cultures. Intervowen words in other languages made me glad to have read it in English, the footnotes give the text a sort of commentary feel (I did have trouble finding the little asterisks within the text though) and the overall style of the book made me think of academia throughout. Usually I never annotate books (also because they are from the library) or even feel the urge to do so. However this book had some sentences or paragraphs that I was tempted to highlight.

Now to the second part. Let me tell you, the subtitle “arcane history of violence” is not to be taken lightly. As part of the colonialism and basically the Industrial Revolution aided by translation, the society of Britain is divided, if “the others” are allowed at all or not ignored. Topics like racism and sexism, even classicism, are unfortunately still relevant to this day and this book does not shy away from it. To me these parts seemed very realistic though painful to read. The descriptions were thought-provoking and made me think of life and loss and society and history and so much more.
There is the saying that history is written by the winner. I don't think there was a real winner at the end. And put in historic context, well you have the Empire and her colonies. Greed and exploitation (of person, land, resources) come with the territory of that.

The transition between these two parts of the book was not gradual. Some underlying or open aggression against our foreign students was always there but a very drastic happening changes the tone of the book and obviously also of the story.

Overall this book was utterly thought-provoking and I couldn't stop relating the writing to things I know of history, from colonialism to German national socialism of WW II, and even to current state of economics relying on finite resources and putting profit on a pedestal above humanity.
Definitely recommend to read!