Persuasion,power and the conversational model

Several lines of study in the humanities and social sciences have drawn on the systematic analysis of the craft of persuasion given by texts in the rhetorical tradition. This review considers the usefulness of this tradition to a critical approach to relations between discourse and power. The books under review use rhetoric in literary study, in social psychology, and in studies of argument in a variety of social sciences, with varying degrees of success. I argue that rhetoric cannot provide a general methodology or basis for a political critique, but is can be useful if studies take into account the institutions in which discourse takes place, the conflicts constituting these institutions, and the excluded participants. Judging from the books under review, applications of the rhetorical tradition work best when they remain close to the practical problems of persuasion in a specific situation.