James Clackson is a recognised world authority on the Indo-European language family. His research has focused on tracking the history and relationships of the ancient languages of the Mediterranean basin and Europe, ranging from Armenian to Volscian. His previous books include The Linguistic Relationship between Armenian and Greek (1994), Indo-European Linguistics (2007), The Blackwell History of the Latin Language (with G. Horrocks, 2007) and The Blackwell Companion to the Latin Language (2011). He is also joint editor of the world's oldest journal in continuous publication devoted to languages and linguistics, The Transactions of the Philological Society.