Customer Reviews

Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students (3rd Edition)

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I had to use this textbook for a graduate-level rhetoric course (the fourth edition), and I must say I was very disappointed. While the textbook contains information about ancient rhetorics, it was poorly written - as though to high school students or, at best, college freshmen (a sentence in the first chapter begins: "An ancient teacher of rhetoric named Aristotle ..."; another passage defined the word "feline" for the reader; I suggest not writing as though your readers are dumb). The language was simplistic to the point of being condescending at moments, and the topics it covered were not addressed in depth. In addition, although the chapters were organized around the canons of rhetoric, the text did not make clear what exactly the more obscure canons were or how they could be used or related to the modern reader. It is "introductory" in only the most basic sense - an introduction to ancient rhetoric could have been more sophisticated and still be accessible to a first-time student (and it definitely wasn't appropriate for my graduate seminar, although that's an issue I have to take up with my professor, not the book). I give it an extra star because the example essays/analyses in each chapter were relevant, interesting, and engaging. All in all, if you're looking for a rigorous introduction to ancient rhetoric, you'll have to look for it somewhere else.

The concept was good: an entree into a wide and often unread segment of antiquity's literature and its intellectual framework for a modern general audience. This was not realized. Before I had looked at the bios, it was evident from some glaring factual shibboleths in the first chapter that neither Crowley nor Hawhee are classicists (e.g. p.9, "Pericles is usually credited with the establishment of democracy in [Athens]"). This was confirmed when seeing each of the topics quickly veer into an exposition of mostly modern writing and communication. A smattering use of the classics in the preambles to prop up a modern media arts treatise would have been more acceptable if the authors had closely consulted people, who could read Greek and Latin and had a more expert knowledge of the ideas, before spinning their own interpretation. But in all fairness, it's harder to find classicists with a sub-specialty in ancient rhetorics than it is for many other areas. It was pleasing at least, to see the general divisions of rhetoric in the ancient model form the book's section and chapter breakdown.

Unfortunately, the book is simply too light on examples of "ancient" rhetoric or its instructive manuals, of which there are many extant. If one were to actually read Demosthenes, Thucydides, Lysias, Isocrates, Cicero, or Quintillian, a very different picture of ancient oratory would emerge than we find here (and I might add, a very interesting one in its own right). That is not to say that the later heritage isn't worth discussing. Shakespeare's Antony "Friends, Romans, Countrymen..." speech is an excellent model, as is the Declaration of Independence, several early American orations, and Letter from a Birmingham Jail., to name a few. There are probably countless others on the other side of the Atlantic I do not know of. Be these shortcomings as they may, students of journalism, law, public relations, and advertising will probably pick up a few useful ideas. The philosophical foundations of ancient oratory however, are not mentioned much beyond a few references to Aristotle. The philosophy's contribution to the manipulation of human belief and emotions are often in very practical agreement with modern principles of group psychology, and would have served the authors' goals well.

I might add to Casey Sewell's review below that the book is not only simplistic for many college students, but is simultaneously too dry for high school. Pictures, diagrams, and photographs are virtually non-existent, despite several opportunities. Pages of prose and lengthy excerpts are unhelpful for developing in adolescents a closer attention to the mechanics of syntax, sound, and semantics. And that's a shame, because there is no other book that attempts anything comparable.

"Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students" isn't just a title, it's a pressing need both for better understanding history in general and improving the higher order skills that involve critical thinking, writing, public speaking, and effective filtering in the information age. Formal rhetoric was a primary skill in antiquity, and its strongest practitioners took extra training in its divisions, techniques, and their use as a prerequisite to public service. We would do well to know the art they forged in the court hall, the agora, the battlefield, and the rostrum in its original form before modifying it. A better textbook is needed.

The essay by John Chuckman on page 199 alone makes the book worth its price. Don't miss it.