In So Many Words: Arguments and Adventures

Since 1975, Robert Schmuhl's writing and teaching have focused on American political culture and contemporary communication, particularly the news media. In So Many Words brings together nearly forty of Schmuhl's previously published essays, which have appeared in the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, American Journalism Review, and Notre Dame Magazine, among others. From investigating contemporary political life, to assessing the current state of journalism, to ruminating on today's republic of letters, this volume demonstrates one writer's probing - and catholic - curiosity.

Robert Schmuhl is inaugural occupant of the Walter H. Annenberg-Edmund P. Joyce Chair in American Studies and Journalism at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also Director of the John W. Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy. He is the author or editor of ten books, including Statecraft and Stagecraft: American Political Life in the Age of Personality (Notre Dame Press, 1990, 1992), Demanding Democracy (Notre Dame Press, 1994), Thomas Jefferson: America's Philosopher-King (1996), and Wounded Titans: American Presidents and the Perils of Power (1996). His edited volume, The Responsibilities of Journalism (Notre Dame Press, 1984), has been published in four foreign editions. His most recent book, Indecent Liberties (Notre Dame Press, 2000), was selected by the Chicago Tribune Books section as one of forty noteworthy nonfiction titles for 2000.