The Story of English by Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil. This book was the companion to a TV series that was shown on the American TV network PBS in the 1980s.
I really like this show and so I bought the book, in fact I have three editions of the book ISBN 0-670-80467-3 , ISBN 0-14-009435-0 and ISBN 0-14-015405-1.
I especially liked the early history of English.