Reviewed by Marc Pierce, University of Texas at Austin

This book contains eighty brief entries on important figures in the history of linguistics and the philosophy of language, including Aristotle, Leonard Bloomfield, Noam Chomsky, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Each entry is relatively brief and straightforward. For example, the entry on Kenneth Pike (206–07), written by Alan S. Kaye, provides a brief biographical overview, a discussion of Pike’s contributions to phonetics and linguistic terminology (e.g. Pike coined the terms emic and etic), references to some of Pike’s writings, and a few works about Pike.

Although one could quibble over the choice of scholars discussed, in general this book covers a judicious cross section of the key figures in the field. The entries contain a great deal of useful and interesting information within a limited amount of space, making the book a handy—and relatively inexpensive—reference guide. It will be a welcome addition to the library of any linguist or philosopher of language.