Political Argumentation in the United States

Historical and contemporary studies

Selected essays by David Zarefsky

David Zarefsky

| Northwestern University

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027211248 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027269904 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

In the United States, political argumentation occurs in institutionalized settings and the broader public forum, in efforts to resolve conflict and efforts to foster it, in settings with time limits and controversies that extend over centuries. From the ratification of the U.S. Constitution to the presidency of Barack Obama, this book contains twenty studies of U.S. political argumentation, grouped under four themes: early American political discourse, Abraham Lincoln’s political argumentation, argumentation about foreign policy, and public policy argumentation since the 1960s.

Deploying methods of rhetorical criticism, argument analysis and evaluation, the studies are rich in contextual grounding and critical perspective. They integrate the European emphasis on politics as an argumentative context with the U.S. tradition of public address studies.

Two essays have never before been published. The others are retrieved from journals and books published between 1979 and 2014. The introductory essay is new for this volume.

[Argumentation in Context, 7] 2014. x, 386 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/aic.7

Table of Contents

Introduction: The field of political argumentation	1–8
Part I. Early American political argumentation
From “conflict” to “Constitutional question”: Transformations in early American public discourse	11–30
John Tyler and the rhetoric of the accidental presidency	31–50
Debating slavery by proxy: The Texas annexation controversy	51–62
Henry Clay and the election of 1844: The limits of a rhetoric of compromise	63–82
Part II. Abraham Lincoln’s political argumentation
Consistency and change in Lincoln’s rhetoric about equality	85–108
“Public sentiment is everything”: Lincoln’s view of political persuasion	109–124
Lincoln and the House Divided: Launching a national political career	125–154
The Lincoln-Douglas debates revisited: The evolution of public argument	155–184
Philosophy and rhetoric in Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address	185–206
Part III. Argumentation and American foreign policy
The self-sealing rhetoric of John Foster Dulles	209–220
Foreign policy as persuasion: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam	221–232
George W. Bush discovers rhetoric: September 20, 2001 and the U.S. response to terrorism	233–254
Making the case for war: Colin Powell at the United Nations	255–280
The U.S. and the world: The rhetorical dimensions of Obama’s foreign policy	281–300
Part IV. American political argumentation since the 1960s
The Great Society as a rhetorical proposition	303–322
Lyndon Johnson redefines “equal opportunity”: The beginnings of affirmative action	323–336
Civil rights and civil conflict: Presidential communication in crisis	337–346
Martin Luther King, the American Dream, and Vietnam: A collision of rhetorical trajectories	347–364
Reagan’s safety net for the truly needy: The rhetorical uses of definition	365–374
Obama’s Lincoln: Uses of the argument from historical analogy	375–382
Index	383–386

“At last there is a volume that brings together David Zarefsky’s thoughtful and wide-ranging insights on rhetoric, argumentation, and significant political puzzles! With characteristic precision and historical sensitivity, Zarefsky perspicuously analyzes the argumentative contours of important rhetorical cases in U.S. politics from the republic’s early days to the present. The collection’s implications for the study and practice of political argument make this eloquent treatment a must-read.”

Kathryn M. Olson, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

“The volume [...] reflects the writing of Dr. Zarefsky on subjects related to early American political argumentation, the public argumentation of Abraham Lincoln, argumentation in American foreign policy, and American political argumentation since the 1960s. [A]n outstanding contribution to the distinguished series [...].”

Robert C. Rowland, University of Kansas

“Throughout his long and distinguished career as a scholar and critic, Zarefsky has analyzed early and modern U.S. public discourse offering academic audiences his insights into the links between public discourse and public policy. This collection enables a wider audience to enjoy his perceptive critiques.”

Karlyn Campbell, University of Minnesota

“This magisterial collection showcases the work of David Zarefsky, an international leader in the study of argumentation in context. Studying more than two centuries of U.S. political history, Zarefsky adroitly deploys argumentation as an analytic perspective in order to demonstrate the power of public discourse at specific moments as well as the trajectory of argumentative practices across time. The volume is essential reading for scholars of argumentation and rhetorical history alike.”

Angela G. Ray, Northwestern University

“A superb critic of political argumentation, David Zarefsky has consistently focused on the rhetorical strategies that define political reality. Taken together, these extraordinary essays chart and explain the

linguistic realities that have made American politics from their founding to the present. It is an invaluable collection.”

John Murphy, University of Illinois

“When it comes to rhetorical discourse in America, David Zarefsky is the dean of historical and critical analysis. In this collection of his writings over the course of the last 30 years, Zarefsky ranges widely—from the early Republic to the debate over Texas annexation to Lincoln and the Civil War to civil rights rhetoric of the 1960s and on into the Obama era. Ever the careful student of history, Zarefsky brings a rhetorical scholar’s acumen to the analysis of specific texts and movements. For those interested in how a master rhetorician wields the tools of critical analysis, I can think of no better introduction.”

Martin J. Medhurst, Baylor University

“This collection of essays reflects the extraordinary breadth and depth of Zarefsky’s work on American political argumentation. The essays identify and explore important argument dynamics in a wide range of cases including constitutional debates in the early republic, the slavery controversy in the nineteenth century, mid-twentieth century domestic policy debates, and early twenty-first century foreign policy issues. I can’t recommend it more highly.”

James Jasinski, University of Puget Sound

Cited by

Cited by other publications

No author info given

2015. In Argumentation in Political Deliberation [Benjamins Current Topics, 76], ► pp. 1 ff.

Lawrence, John, Jacky Visser, Chris Reed, Randy Allen Harris & Chrysanne Di Marco

2017. Harnessing rhetorical figures for argument mining. Argument & Computation 8:3 ► pp. 289 ff.

Lewiński, Marcin & Dima Mohammed

2016. In The International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy, ► pp. 1 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 may 2020. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects

Communication Studies

Linguistics

Historical linguistics

Discourse studies

Pragmatics

BIC Subject: CFG – Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis

BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General

U.S. Library of Congress Control Number: 2014012491