I don't even know how to begin to review this book. It was heavy, technical, and specific. Robin is brought from his home in Canton, where he's dying, to Oxford with a professor from Babel. The tower of language and history. He's trained from a young age and eventually goes to study in Babel itself, with a cohort of three other students - Ramy, Victiore, and Letty. They become close and navigate the political and cultural landscape that is Oxford in the early 1800s, and while they struggle with being foreign - Asian, Black, Indian - Letty, a white girl, cannot understand their collective plight.
She cannot understand why they fight so hard for their homeland when they are here, and well taken care of by the university. They want for nothing, yet they fight for justice for people in a far away land they've never met. Thus she cannot understand when they inevitably come into contact with the illusive Hermes society, whose goal is to make silver accessible to all countries, rich or poor.
The political and class implications of keeping something that can be life saving in Britain because the rich can afford to use it frivolously and keep it from the rest of the world is a strong but harsh parallel to many issues we still face in this world. This book was long, slow going, and detailed, but it was also so rich in story and life.