Sir John Hale is one of the worlds foremost Renaissance historians whose book "The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance" (1993) won the Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann award and the international silver pen. Soon after delivering the second draft of his text, Hale had a stroke that deprived him of the power of speech. His wife Shelia Hale, set out to find out what had happened and how John might be brought back to normal as far as possible. The book combines a detailed account of dysphasia and what he can tell us about language with a personal account of John and Shelia's own expericences.