Political Argumentation in the United States
Historical and contemporary studies
Selected essays by David Zarefsky
| Northwestern University
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.
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
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Introduction: The field of political argumentation | pp. 1–8
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Part I. Early American political argumentation
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From “conflict” to “Constitutional question”: Transformations in early American public discourse | pp. 11–30
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John Tyler and the rhetoric of the accidental presidency | pp. 31–50
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Debating slavery by proxy: The Texas annexation controversy | pp. 51–62
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Henry Clay and the election of 1844: The limits of a rhetoric of compromise | pp. 63–82
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Part II. Abraham Lincoln’s political argumentation
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Consistency and change in Lincoln’s rhetoric about equality | pp. 85–108
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“Public sentiment is everything”: Lincoln’s view of political persuasion | pp. 109–124
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Lincoln and the House Divided: Launching a national political career | pp. 125–154
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The Lincoln-Douglas debates revisited: The evolution of public argument | pp. 155–184
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Philosophy and rhetoric in Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address | pp. 185–206
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Part III. Argumentation and American foreign policy
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The self-sealing rhetoric of John Foster Dulles | pp. 209–220
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Foreign policy as persuasion: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam | pp. 221–232
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George W. Bush discovers rhetoric: September 20, 2001 and the U.S. response to terrorism | pp. 233–254
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Making the case for war: Colin Powell at the United Nations | pp. 255–280
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The U.S. and the world: The rhetorical dimensions of Obama’s foreign policy | pp. 281–300
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Part IV. American political argumentation since the 1960s
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The Great Society as a rhetorical proposition | pp. 303–322
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Lyndon Johnson redefines “equal opportunity”: The beginnings of affirmative action | pp. 323–336
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Civil rights and civil conflict: Presidential communication in crisis | pp. 337–346
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Martin Luther King, the American Dream, and Vietnam: A collision of rhetorical trajectories | pp. 347–364
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Reagan’s safety net for the truly needy: The rhetorical uses of definition | pp. 365–374
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Obama’s Lincoln: Uses of the argument from historical analogy | pp. 375–382
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Index | pp. 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.”
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 6 other publications
No author info given
2015.
In Argumentation in Political Deliberation [Benjamins Current Topics, 76],
► pp. 1 ff. 
Greco, Sara
2021. Review of Brambilla (2020): The quest for argumentative equivalence. Argumentative patterns in political interpreting contexts.
Journal of Argumentation in Context 10:3 ► pp. 418 ff.
Hernández, Alfonso
2021. Journalists’ moves in political press conferences and their implications for accountability.
Journal of Argumentation in Context 10:3 ► pp. 281 ff.
Hollihan, Thomas A.
2021.
In Diplomatic and Mediated Arguments in the North Korean Crisis [Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy, ],
► pp. 25 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 26 april 2022. 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 & Metadata
Communication Studies
BIC Subject: CFG – Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General