The War of Words

“A timely new work by the most important rhetorician of the twentieth century.”—Steven Mailloux, President’s Professor of Rhetoric, Loyola Marymount University
 
“This book recovers a set of ‘lost’ texts from Kenneth Burke. It is important as history, but it is also full of valuable contributions to rhetorical theory and criticism.”—Edward Schiappa, John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 
“An absolutely indispensable addition to the Burkean corpus, with an admirable contextualization by the editors. The material they have prepared is exquisite.”—Barry Brummett, Charles Sapp Centennial Professor in Communication, University of Texas at Austin
 
“With the publication of Kenneth Burke’s War of Words, modern rhetoric will be forever changed. Burke’s main contributions to modern rhetoric will be seen not just as identification but also as myth and argumentative devices. Originally imagined as the second half of A Rhetoric of Motives, his War of Words was cut because he feared its focus on analyzing particular historical events might date the work and, thus, undermine his larger project of constructing a philosophy of modern rhetoric. But the editors who have brought his War of Words to us at this moment have done a tremendous service to Burke studies and to rhetoric studies more generally. Even though our myths today may differ from those of Burke’s era (especially in terms of gender), as a pedagogical model for analyzing the myths that we live, govern, and die by, War of Words could not be more timely.”—Krista Ratcliffe, Professor and Chair of English, Arizona State University