Rhetoric and Politics

In recent years there has been a revival of interest in the writings of Baltasar Gracian, a seventeenth-century Spanish Jesuit who explored the political uses of rhetoric. Gracian is best known in the United States for his bestselling collection of aphorisms entitled The Art of Worldly Wisdom.

The essays in this volume focus on the relevance of Gracian's writings in our own day, when the importance of rhetoric as a discipline necessary to manage public life is indisputable. Wide-ranging in focus, these essays demonstrate that Gracian's work offers insights into the deployment of rhetoric under the "New World Order".