Comparative Rhetoric

George A. Kennedy taught classics, comparative literature, and rhetoric at the University of North Carolina for twenty-eight years and now lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. He is the author of many books, and is the renowned translator of Aristotle's On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse (OUP, 1991).

• PART I: RHETORIC IN SOCIETIES WITHOUT WRITING1. Rhetoric Among Social Animals2. Rhetorical Factors in the Early Development of Human Language3. Rhetoric in Aboriginal Australian Culture4. Formal Speech in Some Oral Cultures5. North American Indian RhetoricPART II: RHETORIC IN ANCIENT LITERATE SOCIETIES6. Literacy and Rhetoric in the Ancient Near East7. Rhetoric in Ancient China8. Rhetoric in Ancient India9. Rhetoric in Greece and Rome

This book is the mature reflection of a highly respected scholar in Graeco-Roman rhetoric ... There is a great deal of useful human knowledge in this book ... The presentation of the argument is admirably clear throughout ... The book is not without humour ... This seems to me a brave book. It is courageous to essay into other cultures, some of them still living, and try to summarise their processes ... K's argument will stimulate interest in comparative rhetoric,as he hopes, and has raised questions to which there will be some very interesting responses.