Catherine Nixi is a Britain correspondent for The Economist. She says the phrasebook was once essential, but has been making redundant. Figures from Nielsen Book Research show that sales have fallen 40% in three years. But they're invaluable to historians because they show you almost better than anything else how people are thinking about the world.
Cows are venerated in India, but precisely how intensely often depends on politics. And being venerated does not necessarily yield a pleasant life for the creatures. Economists rarely consider how policies will affect birth rates and the yet-to-be-born; we examine the thorny topic of “population ethics”. And foreign-language phrasebooks may be in decline but they maintain huge historical value.
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