“An entertaining history of great oratory” (New Yorker) and a primer to rhetoric’s key techniques
Rhetoric gives our words the power to inspire. But it’s not just for politicians: it’s all around us, whether you’re buttering up a key client or persuading your children to eat their vegetables. 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 argument from ancient Greece through the present day. He introduces verbal villains from Hitler to Donald Trump—and the three musketeers: ethos, pathos, and logos. He explains how rhetoric works in speeches from Cicero to Zelensky and pays tribute to the rhetorical brilliance of AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” Before you know it, you’ll be confident in chiasmus and proud of your panegyrics—because rhetoric is useful, relevant, and crucial to understanding the world around us.
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Leith
brings to life a forgotten but eternally essential subject.... Leith uses every
tool in the rhetorician's arsenal to argue for rhetoric's continuing relevance....
Readers will gain a great deal of insight into how humans use communication to
get what they want...the book fulfills Cicero's three objectives of rhetoric:
'to move, educate, and delight.'
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Kirkus Reviews