“A solid rhetorical analysis that also serves as a brief lesson in both American history and the politics of that era.”–
“The Fourth Chapter, "Defending the Free World" is one of the most densely argued, critically insightful pieces ever written about Ike. Medhurst is a very gifted critic. Almost every sentence is a zinger. The section on the use of surrogates is so brilliant that I read it to my political science classes, and when I had finished they longed to hear more. They asked me why persons in our field did not write as lucidly and as powerfully as Medhurst.”–
Product Description
This first book-length study of Ike's consummate skills as a communicator shows how he used language as a weapon to achieve carefully conceived strategic purposes in the Cold War. If he seemed befuddled, he knew exactly what he was doing and why, used half-truths, was intentionally ambiguous and indirect, choosing his audiences and times deliberately and tactically. An expert in communication for this period provides an analysis of his speaking, extracts from important speeches, a selected chronology of speeches, and the most comprehensive bibliography of Eisenhower as an orator yet to be published, drawing on extensive primary and secondary material.
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