Words Like Loaded Pistols

Bol Partner

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.

Bol

“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.