With the monograph What is English? – subtitled And Why Should We Care? – Tim William Machan has presented a difficult book. The dust jacket already prepares the prospective reader by stating that “Finding an account that fits the constantly changing varieties of English is, Tim Machan finds, anything but simple”. And this text continues: “But he [i.e. Machan] rises to the challenge, grappling with its elusive essence through episodes in its history.” It is the combination of a tremendous amount of information and the ‘episodic’ form of this monograph that makes this book quite challenging.