The Rhetoric of RHETORIC: The Quest for Effective Communication

The Rhetoric of RHETORIC is a manifesto addressed to a broad audience, dramatizing the importance of rhetorical studies and lamenting their widespread neglect. In it, distinguished critic Wayne C. Booth claims that communication in every corner of life can be improved if only we study rhetoric more closely. After exploring and combating the various pejorative definitions of “rhetoric” and briefly tracing its history, Booth explores the consequences of bad rhetoric in education, in politics, and in the media. A few cures for bad rhetoric are offered, and a final chapter investigates the possibility of reducing harmful conflict by practicing a rhetoric that depends on deep listening by both sides. The key example used is the warfare between science and religion.

Preface. Acknowledgments. Part I Rhetoric’s Status: Up, Down, and – Up?. 1 How Many “Rhetorics”?. 2 A Condensed History of Rhetorical Studies. 3 Judging Rhetoric. 4 Some Major Rescuers. Part II The Need for Rhetorical Studies Today. 5 The Fate of Rhetoric in Education. 6 The Threats of Political Rhetrickery. 7 Media Rhetrickery. Part III Reducing Rhetorical Warfare. 8 Can Rhetorology Yield More Than a Mere Truce, in Any of Our “Wars”?. Conclusion. Notes. Index of Names and Titles. Index of Subjects

Wayne C. Booth is Distinguished Service Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Chicago. His previous publications include The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961), A Rhetoric of Irony (1974), Critical Understanding (1979), The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction (1988), The Craft of Research (with Williams and Colomb, 1994), and For the Love of It: Amateuring and Its Rivals (1999). Like most of his publications, his teaching has concentrated on diverse ways of improving human communication.

"In The Rhetoric of RHETORIC Wayne C. Booth passionately and persuasively demonstrates the centrality of rhetoric to human inquiry and human interaction. Taking Booth’s manifesto seriously –– responding to it in the spirit of what he calls ‘listening rhetoric’ –– can improve the quality of our thought, our interactions, and, thus, our lives." James Phelan, Ohio State University