American Rhetoric from Roosevelt to Reagan

American Rhetoric from Roosevelt to Reagan PDF Author: Halford Ross Ryan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
The student of contemporary American public address, rhetorical criticism, and persuasion needs two fundamental kinds of original materials upon which to build a successful mastery of these disciplines. I believe that the student can begin to study these disciplines by scrutinizing texts of speeches. But which speeches should one study? From many useful criteria, I chose two that somewhat overlap. First, I selected significant or standard political speakers. I make the word "political" go beyond mere party politics and use the word in its original and wider Greek sense of the polis: the concerns of the state. Second, I selected speeches which can be treated as examples of advocacy or debate on important issues of the American polis. -- pg. xi.

American Rhetoric from Roosevelt to Reagan

American Rhetoric from Roosevelt to Reagan PDF Author: Halford Ross Ryan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Get Book Here

Book Description
The student of contemporary American public address, rhetorical criticism, and persuasion needs two fundamental kinds of original materials upon which to build a successful mastery of these disciplines. I believe that the student can begin to study these disciplines by scrutinizing texts of speeches. But which speeches should one study? From many useful criteria, I chose two that somewhat overlap. First, I selected significant or standard political speakers. I make the word "political" go beyond mere party politics and use the word in its original and wider Greek sense of the polis: the concerns of the state. Second, I selected speeches which can be treated as examples of advocacy or debate on important issues of the American polis. -- pg. xi.

The Presidency and Rhetorical Leadership

The Presidency and Rhetorical Leadership PDF Author: Leroy G. Dorsey
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 9781603440561
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Successful presidential leadership depends upon words as well as deeds. In this multifaceted look at rhetorical leadership, twelve leading scholars in three different disciplines provide in-depth studies of how words have served or disserved American presidents. At the heart of rhetorical leadership lies the classical concept of prudence, practical wisdom that combines good sense with good character. From their disparate treatments of a range of presidencies, an underlying agreement emerges among the historians, political scientists, and communication scholars included in the volume. To be effective, they find, presidents must be able to articulate the common good in a particular situation and they must be credible on the basis of their own character. Who they are and what they can do are thus twin pillars of successful rhetorical leadership. Leroy G. Dorsey introduces these themes, and David Zarefsky picks them up in looking at the historical development of rhetorical leadership within the office of the presidency. Each succeeding chapter then examines the rhetorical leadership of a particular president, often within the context of a specific incident or challenge that marked his term in office. Chapters dealing with George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton offer the specifics for a clearer understanding of how rhetoric serves leadership in the American presidency. This book provides an indispensable addition to the literature on the presidency and in leadership studies.

American Speeches Vol. 1 (LOA #166)

American Speeches Vol. 1 (LOA #166) PDF Author: Edward L. Widmer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 840

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Book Description
A historian and former presidential speechwriter presents an unprecedented two-volume collection of the greatest speeches in American history.

President Reagan

President Reagan PDF Author: Lou Cannon
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 078672417X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 916

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Book Description
Hailed by the New Yorker as "a superlative study of a president and his presidency," Lou Cannon's President Reagan remains the definitive account of our most significant presidency in the last fifty years. Ronald Wilson Reagan, the first actor to be elected president, turned in the performance of a lifetime. But that performance concealed the complexities of the man, baffling most who came in contact with him. Who was the man behind the makeup? Only Lou Cannon, who covered Reagan through his political career, can tell us. The keenest Reagan-watcher of them all, he has been the only author to reveal the nature of a man both shrewd and oblivious. Based on hundreds of interviews with the president, the First Lady, and hundreds of the administration's major figures, President Reagan takes us behind the scenes of the Oval Office. Cannon leads us through all of Reagan's roles, from the affable cowboy to the self-styled family man; from the politician who denounced big government to the president who created the largest peace-time deficit; from the statesman who reviled the Soviet government to the Great Communicator who helped end the cold war.

A Time for Choosing

A Time for Choosing PDF Author: Ronald Reagan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780895266224
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description


Cowboy Presidents

Cowboy Presidents PDF Author: David A. Smith
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806169699
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
For an element so firmly fixed in American culture, the frontier myth is surprisingly flexible. How else to explain its having taken two such different guises in the twentieth century—the progressive, forward-looking politics of Rough Rider president Teddy Roosevelt and the conservative, old-fashioned character and Cold War politics of Ronald Reagan? This is the conundrum at the heart of Cowboy Presidents, which explores the deployment and consequent transformation of the frontier myth by four U.S. presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. Behind the shape-shifting of this myth, historian David A. Smith finds major events in American and world history that have made various aspects of the “Old West” frontier more relevant, and more useful, for promoting radically different political ideologies and agendas. And these divergent adaptations of frontier symbolism have altered the frontier myth. Theodore Roosevelt, with his vigorous pursuit of an activist federal government, helped establish a version of the frontier myth that today would be considered liberal. But then, Smith shows, a series of events from the Lyndon Johnson through Jimmy Carter presidencies—including Vietnam, race riots, and stagflation—seemed to give the lie to the progressive frontier myth. In the wake of these crises, Smith’s analysis reveals, the entire structure and popular representation of frontier symbols and images in American politics shifted dramatically from left to right, and from liberal to conservative, with profound implications for the history of American thought and presidential politics. The now popular idea that “frontier American” leaders and politicians are naturally Republicans with conservative ideals flows directly from the Reagan era. Cowboy Presidents gives us a new, clarifying perspective on how Americans shape and understand their national identity and sense of purpose; at the same time, reflecting on the essential mutability of a quintessentially national myth, the book suggests that the next iteration of the frontier myth may well be on the horizon.

The Rhetoric of Donald Trump

The Rhetoric of Donald Trump PDF Author: Robert C. Rowland
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700631968
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
The Rhetoric of Donald Trump identifies and analyzes the nationalist and populist themes that dominate the rhetoric of President Trump and links those themes to a persona that has evolved from celebrity outsider to presidential strongman. In the process Robert C. Rowland explains how the nationalist populism and strongman persona in turn demands a vernacular rhetorical style unlike any previous modern president—a style that makes no attempt to lay out a case, requires constant lies, and breaks every norm for how a presidential candidate or president should talk. In stark contrast, our most effective presidents have used rhetoric to present a positive vision of what the nation could achieve. The three most effective presidential uses of rhetoric in the past century—FDR, Reagan, and Obama—all presented a coherent ideological message that, while focused on problems of the moment, was also rooted in a fundamental optimism. In contrast, Trump’s message is fundamentally negative. The Rhetoric of Donald Trump explores how the nation could so abruptly shift from a president such as Barack Obama, who emphasized the audacity of hope, to one who in his inaugural address spoke about “American carnage.” At its core, Trump’s message is well designed to appeal to voters with an authoritarian personality structure, especially in the white working-class, who feel threatened by the pace of societal change, especially demographic change. Rowland’s work illustrates how President Trump’s ceremonial speeches violate norms calling for a message of national unity and instead present a divisive message designed to create strongly negative emotions, especially fear and hate. It further reveals how Trump sustains those strong visceral reactions with his use of Twitter to make the rally atmosphere a daily reality for his supporters, a prime example being the Coronavirus Task Force briefings, which he transformed from an exercise in desperately needed public health education into a partisan rally. The Rhetoric of Donald Trump is essential reading for scholars, students, and the informed citizen to understand how Trump’s rhetoric of nationalist populism with a strongman persona undermines basic principles at the heart of American democracy.

What Libraries Mean to the Nation

What Libraries Mean to the Nation PDF Author: Eleanor Roosevelt
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Libraries
Languages : en
Pages : 12

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Book Description


Defining Americans

Defining Americans PDF Author: Mary E. Stuckey
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700635203
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
Andrew Jackson spoke to Americans in ways that reflected the concerns of a young nation. Grover Cleveland helped citizens redefine themselves after the havoc of the Civil War era. FDR confronted widespread hardship with hope and determination, while Eisenhower spoke to our fears of the Communist menace. Throughout our history, presidents by their very utterances have shaped our sense of who we are as Americans. As Mary Stuckey observes, presidents embrace, articulate, and reinvigorate our sense of national identity. They define who Americans are—often by declaring who they aren’t. In this book, she shows how presidential speech has served to broaden the American political community over the past two centuries while at the same time excluding others. Ranging broadly from Andrew Jackson to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Stuckey demonstrates how presidents accomplish the dual enactment of inclusion and exclusion through their rhetorical and political choices. Our early leaders were preoccupied with balancing the growing nation; later presidents were concerned with the nature and definitions of citizenship. By examining the political speeches of presidents exemplifying distinctly different circumstances, she presents a series of snapshots which, when taken together, reveal both the continuity and the changes in our national self-understanding. Ambitious and sweeping, Stuckey’s work documents the tactics that have naturalized and legitimated inclusion and exclusion, tracing the progress of groups such as women and African Americans from political invisibility to partial visibility and eventual inclusion. She also shows how the terms of inclusion have varied with changing political winds, helping us understand how depictions of the powerless by the powerful reflect and influence the status of various groups. Stuckey’s analysis shows how presidents use language rooted in their times and circumstances to frame and influence contemporary definitions of citizenship. A provocative book that documents the changes in our understanding of who is and who isn’t one of “us,” Defining Americans reveals that all presidents draw upon the same set of national ideals, values, and events—but not all use those ideas in precisely the same ways.

The Fight for the Four Freedoms

The Fight for the Four Freedoms PDF Author: Harvey J. Kaye
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451691432
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
An inspiring call to redeem the progressive legacy of the greatest generation, now under threat as never before. On January 6, 1941, the Greatest Generation gave voice to its founding principles, the Four Freedoms: Freedom from want and from fear. Freedom of speech and religion. In the name of the Four Freedoms they fought the Great Depression. In the name of the Four Freedoms they defeated the Axis powers. In the process they made the United States the richest and most powerful country on Earth. And, despite a powerful, reactionary opposition, the men and women of the Greatest Generation made America freer, more equal, and more democratic than ever before. Now, when all they fought for is under siege, we need to remember their full achievement, and, so armed, take up again the fight for the Four Freedoms.