Rhetoric in British Politics and Society

'Rhetorics in British Politics and Society is a unique book. It is the most comprehensive survey of the place of rhetoric in British political culture available at the moment. It is also a unique exercise in using rhetorical theory to understand contemporary political communication, which shows the potential of rhetoric as a paradigm in communication studies and political science. The authors say that the antidote to bad, manipulative rhetoric is not no rhetoric, but good rhetoric. They rightly draw our attention to the fact that the teaching and training of rhetorical skills, even if these do not go under that name anymore, is, in Britain, still the pregorative of the privileged and there it is often limited to an understanding of persuasion that stems from the hierarchical, paternalistic past of our political and social instutions. Much needs to be done to create new forms and understandings of what it means to 'speak well' and to democratise the teaching of rhetoric. The authors show that politics and civil society cannot afford to ignore rhetoric, its past and even more so its future' - Johan Siebers, Division of English Language, Linguistics, Literature and Culture, University of Central Lancashire, UK