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Words Like Loaded Pistols
Sam Leith
Basic Books
May 2012
On Sale: May 1, 2012
320 pages ISBN: 0465031056 EAN: 9780465031054 Kindle: B007UPDD48 Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Political
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.
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