The last chapter of this book was finished on the day when Bobby Robins, whose A Short History of Linguistics has been admired for more than thirty years, was found dead. It is with sadness and affection that I dedicate it, with its presumptuously similar title, to his memory.

I was initially not at all sure how this history should be written: in particular, how selective and, in consequence, how long it should be. For advice at that stage I am especially grateful to Jeremy Mynott and, in a sense that they will understand, to my fellow editors of the Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. Conversations with Kasia Jaszczolt have since helped, at various times, to clarify my thinking.

I am also grateful to Andrew Winnard for waiting patiently for the book to be written.