In seeking to chronicle, evaluate and explain the commitment to protect and extend the use of French in and beyond France, Adamson's book provides an excellent resource for students and researchers working in sociolinguistics, both as a reference work in French studies and as a study by which to measure language management for other languages across the world. Accessible and informative, this monograph contextualises what is most obviously articulated today in the various forms of the modern media as the obsession in France with defending the French language against interference, normally in the form of English. Moreover, Adamson evaluates the different language management strategies pursued by French language planners to manipulate language practices as well as to assure what is perceived as the integrity of France's standard language.

The book is organised into six chapters plus a conclusion and includes an extensive and contemporary bibliography. There is also a significant list of Internet sources and this anchoring of the research that Adamson has undertaken in the world wide web is one of the book's strengths. Whilst acknowledging the potential pitfalls of using the Internet, both in terms of resources to illustrate her arguments and of support material for interested scholars, Adamson exploits the on-line material uploaded by groups and agencies involved in the defence of the French language. The reference list of interest sources is genuinely useful to researchers investigating language policy and related fields and highlights the work undertaken by some institutions, such as Canada's Université Laval, in making information available on-line rather than merely in hard copy.

The first chapter provides a historical context for the rest of the book and gives a short overview of the standardisation of French whilst the second chapter articulates the key themes in the defence of the French language. The third chapter constitutes one of the defining characteristics of the book in that it provides for the first time in English – to my knowledge – a clear, concise and balanced analysis of the four principal official agencies involved in language management on behalf of French. This chapter has already proved invaluable in teaching language policy to undergraduates, as well as serving as a handy reference for my own research. The short fourth chapter examines the defence of French from a sociolinguistic perspective within the political domain and Chapter Five sets the example of France's defensive language policy against brief case studies of language policy in Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, using five different vectors, such as official policy, other agencies, and current issues. Chapter Six, entitled ‘Problems and Paradoxes’ is an extended pre-conclusion postface which starts to provide some synthesis of the issues encountered throughout the study.

This monograph is not only interesting and well written but informative and carefully argued, drawing together material that has not been previously available in one place, and evaluating a defensive attitude that is normally merely caricatured as an irrational phobia of the English language. In tracing the sources of the French establishment's suspicion of the other in terms of language, Adamson privileges top-down language management and could possibly have devoted more space to the language practices of those who do not appear particularly averse to colouring their language with Anglicisms and non-standard French. More worrying are the frequent references to riots across France in late 2005 which Adamson chooses to emphasise as a backcloth to the aspects of language policy highlighted in this book. As it has transpired, the riots were significant but do not have the resonance today that the author appeared to predict they might. This might constitute a shortcoming in that it swiftly dates the work which otherwise has a particularly contemporary feel. The only other criticism I would note is the infuriating confusion of parentheses in the presentation of quotations. This proliferation of brackets can be explained by the decision to include references in the original French. This practice is questionable, not least because it is not applied consistently (on one or two occasions, a shorter quotation appears only in English whilst longer passages are reproduced in both languages). Given the potential benefit of this book to scholars beyond French studies, it would not be inappropriate – especially in the light of the careful referencing of all sources – to translate every quotation into English and thereby avoid the clustering of different formats of parentheses. The irony of removing the French language from the body of this text, however, would not be lost on the many defenders of the language enumerated by the author.

Nevertheless, such minor shortcomings do not detract from what is a timely and welcome addition to the debate surrounding language policy in France.