"This is an important book: original, erudite, useful and ambitious." —Quarterly Journal of Speech

"A remarkable book . . . sure to be of lasting interest . . . to be reckoned with by all rhetorical theorists." —Choice

This is the first contemporary attempt at a holistic theory of rhetoric, well grounded in the context of cultural and social history. Arguing that rhetoric has always been an independent, objective, essential factor in human interaction, Valesio views it as coextensive with human speech in use.