Edited by Thomas Ricento, Professor & Chair, English as an Additional Language, University of Calgary

Thomas Ricento is Professor and Research Chair at the University of Calgary, Canada. He has published widely in the field of language policy and on the politics of language in North America. He was a Fulbright Professor in Colombia (1989) and Costa Rica (2000), and a visiting professor at universities in Chile, Germany, Spain, , and Switzerland. He was Director of English Language Programs at the Japan Center for Michigan Universities, Hikone, Japan from 1989-1991.

Winner of the 2018 American Association for Applied Linguistics Book Award

"Language Policy and Political Economy is a high-quality and high-powered collection. Ricento has curated a volume that provides an interdisciplinary perspective on English in the contemporary world. With their focus on capitalism, development, globalization, and neoliberalism, the contributions are decidedly relevant for understanding today's language politics. In all, the book provides the field of language policy and planning with a robust introduction to the foundations of political economy." - AAAL Book Award Committee

"Tom Ricento and the stellar cast of scholars he has assembled in this book achieve something extraordinary: they construct a story that people will still have to read decades later, on an object characterized paradoxically by extremely rapid and radical change. It is an intellectual and academic 'tour de force' which focuses on mechanisms and structures rather than on phenomena and anecdotes, and so easily transcends the level of here-and-now documentation." - Jan Blommaert, Tilburg University

"In an era where language change and loss is often explained by reference to inevitable forces of 'culture' and 'globalization,' this important book brings us back home to core questions of economic power and political control." - Allan Luke, Queensland University of Technology

"Language Policy and Political Economy is both timely and important, engaging with the debates that are central to current language policy research. I don't think anyone will be able to write about 'global English' again without seriously engaging with the analyses in this book." - James Tollefson, The University of Hong Kong

"The editor and contributors are to be congratulated for forging a new approach to language policy and the role of English in the world. They also rightly question the widely shared view that the global spread of English is overwhelmingly positive." - CHOICE

"Language Policy and Political Economy is superbly conceived and executed, rewarding readers as both a coherent collective and in individual essays. It was an utmost pleasure to read... Each of the authors needs to be commended for taking the stances they have and for speaking in unison about political economy and global English. Ricento is to be commended for bringing together ideas that are fundamental to who we are as humans and to what our ideals of equality ought to look like. Quite simply, this volume was a treat to review." - Journal of Sociolinguistics

"The book contributes to the demythologisation of an 'English-only' remedy for the world's communication problems. It offers perspectives from linguistic economy, political theory, sociology, English, and education studies, and presents a broad range of research methods." - Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

"Ricento's book convinces the reader of the importance of the political economy perspective when analysing language policy in general" - Christopher Houtkamp, Language Problems & Language Planning

"Language Policy and Political Economy is superbly conceived and executed, rewarding readers as both a coherent collective and in individual essays." - Vaidehi Ramanathan, Sociolinguistics