Scholars from five disciplines address thirteen societies to highlight the social and political life of words in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Such words as security in Brazil, responsibililty in Japan, community in Thailand, and hijāb in France changed the societies in which they moved even as they were changed by them. Taken together, this selection of fourteen words reveals commonality as well as distinctiveness in modern societies, making the world look different from the interdisciplinary and transnational perspective of "words in motion."