Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama

Sam Leith

ISBN 10: 0465031056 / ISBN 13: 9780465031054

Editore: Basic Books, 2012

Pages are clean and are not marred by notes or folds of any kind. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Codice articolo G0465031056I2N00

Riassunto:

Rhetoric is all around us. It’s what inspires armies, convicts criminals, and makes or breaks presidential candidates. And it isn’t just the preserve of politicians. It’s in the presentation to a key client, the half-time talk in the locker room, and the plea to your children to eat their vegetables. Rhetoric gives words power: it persuades and cajoles, inspires and bamboozles, thrills and misdirects. You have been using rhetoric yourself, all your life. After all, you know what a rhetorical question is, don’t you?
In Words Like Loaded Pistols, Sam Leith traces the art of persuasion, beginning in ancient Syracuse and taking us on detours as varied and fascinating as Elizabethan England, Milton’s Satanic realm, the Springfield of Abraham Lincoln and the Springfield of Homer Simpson. He explains how language has been used by the great heroes of rhetoric (such as Cicero and Martin Luther King Jr.), as well as some villains (like Adolf Hitler and Richard Nixon.)

Leith provides a primer to rhetoric’s key techniques. In Words Like Loaded Pistols, you’ll find out how to build your own memory-palace; you’ll be introduced to the Three Musketeers: Ethos, Pathos and Logos; and you’ll learn how to use chiasmus with confidence and occultation without thinking about it. Most importantly of all, you will discover that rhetoric is useful, relevant and absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

Informazioni sull?autore:

Sam Leith is a former literary editor of the Daily Telegraph, and contributes regularly to theWall Street Journal, Prospect, Guardian, Evening Standard andSpectator. He is the author of a novel, The Coincidence Engine as well as two works of non-fiction. He lives in London.

Dati bibliografici

Titolo: Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from ...
Casa editrice: Basic Books
Data di pubblicazione: 2012
Legatura: Hardcover
Condizione: As New
Condizione sovraccoperta: No Jacket