Saturday, March 17, 2018

Demagoguery and Democracy, Patricia Roberts-Miller

Demagoguery and Democracy by Patricia Roberts-Miller is a tiny little book that I picked up as a result of reading a portion of it in Salon.

Started:  3/13/2018
Completed: 3/17/2018
Recommendation: Recommended for those familiar with oratory
Recommended By:  Nobody

Review:

This is a fairly technical book written by a pretty impressive author and the attempt is clearly to make the material approachable for most people.  I do not think that people unfamiliar with oratory will find it approachable.  In addition, I think people well-versed in oratory will find it slow-paced and with lots of explanations of obvious things.  I fit in this middle ground--I have studied oratory (and references to Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle seem welcome), but I am far from knowledgeable in the topic.  This book has a very useful definition of Demagoguery and is so small that it will fit nicely on my shelf next to On Tyranny.  I plan to keep this book and come back to it as needed.

This is a small format book which packs a lot into a small number of pages.  It is smaller than a paperback (perhaps 2/3 the size) and the 120 pages would be far fewer in any other format.  The book has a certain confidence that I find useful and backs up that confidence with reasonable arguments.  I like that!

No comments:

Post a Comment