Nicholas Ostler's Ad Infinitum is a thorough, illuminating history of the Latin language, following it from its birth among the other pre-Christian languages of the Mediterranean; to its adolescent contention with Etruscan and Greek on the Italian peninsula; to its maturity with Cicero, Horace, Ovid, and others; to its middle age as the progenitor of the Romance languages of continental Europe; and finally to its respected senescence as the language (now largely abandoned) of the Catholic church. Along the way, Latin became the backbone, some would say, of modern English (along with powerful Germanic and Greek influences, of course).