I am sure the book is worth reading for any linguist, and especially for those interested in morphology, grammaticalization, and complexity. It is engaging, very thought provoking, and well written. In a sense, this book is a challenge to linguistics, or rather multiple different challenges, and I believe the field will benefit from taking up at least some of them.

- Elena Maslova, Stanford University and University Bielefeld, in Linguistic Typology 11(2), 2007,

This book is worth reading now that the research for linguistic complexity has increased substantially since the turn of the millennium...If further developed, Dahl's methodology may be ground-breaking for the research of complexity in language diachrony. On the whole the merits a high recommendation to scholars working on historical linguistics and especially to anyone interested in the study of linguistic complexity.

- Kaius Sinnemäki on Linguist List16-1059, 2005,