"Stephen Dunne’s book on persuasion is very persuasive. So much so, I bought twenty copies. You can’t get more persuasive than that. Don’t delay, buy it today!" Stephen Brown, Author of "The Marketing Code" and Professor at Ulster University, UK"Every successful business, politician, activist or story-teller depends, whether they know it or not, on the art or science of persuasion. In this innovative and wonderfully readable book, Stephen Dunne draws on centuries of insight and a range of vivid examples, to examine how we are led and misled today." Will Davies, Author of "Nervous States: How Feeling took over the World" and Professor at Goldsmiths University of London, UK"If we cannot persuade each other, we lose a key component of what it means to be human. In this essential new book, Stephen Dunne offers a novel interdisciplinary account of persuasion, re-connecting with its contested conceptual history to detect, detail, and develop persuasive practices in contemporary business and society." Sine Nørholm Just, Author of "Controversial Encounters in the Age of Algorithms" and Professor at Roskilde University, UK"Stephen Dunne’s book on Persuasion should be recommended reading for all students wishing to understand the philosophical foundations and skills of dishonesty as well as the psychology, politics, and prose of cultural brand makers in contemporary societies. Dunne provides a depth of analysis that sadly has been lost in much of the academy and is a timely reminder of the need to refuse the dark arts of storytelling for a purpose." Pierre McDonagh, Author of "The Dark Side of Marketing Communications" and Professor at the University of Bath, UK"Stephen Dunne’s book is a fascinating and detailed analysis of the many ways in which the humanities and social sciences have engaged with the challenges of understanding how we seek to change each other’s minds and behaviours. Offering students and researchers a rich and variegated context for our struggle with the mysteries of persuasion, Dunne’s study provides a perfect argument for how careful and creative interdisciplinary work offers deep insights into a topic central to marketing, management, and organizational studies." Christopher Miles, Author of "Marketing, Rhetoric and Control" and Principal Academic in Marketing Communications at Bournemouth University, UK"At the present moment, it might be comforting to imagine that the 'good' people are engaged in a fight for truth against the 'bad' ones. The problem is that it is not clear who is which. In this dense and beautiful book, Stephen Dunne encourages to think about this in terms of persuasion, a social process that includes marketing, fiction, myth, politics, and theory. It cannot be escaped, and it has always mattered very much indeed. Read this book and understand why." Martin Parker, Author of "Against Management" and Professor at Bristol University, UK"Blending a discussion of popular culture, political history, philosophy, and psychology, Stephen Dunne deftly unpicks the art of persuasion and its often-pernicious consequences. Eminently readable, politically astute and intellectually robust, I was persuaded!" Carl Rhodes, Author of "Woke Capitalism: How Corporate Morality is Sabotaging Democracy" and Dean at UTS Business School, Sydney, Australia"This beautifully written tour de force concerns the persuasive use of language. However, it is not your typical semiotic analysis. Taking us through the philosophical, to the political, from the psychological, to literary criticism, Dunne outlines a profound shift from the ancients, where rhetoric was often understood as deception, to corporate communication, where distinctions between truth and fiction become habitually manipulated." Gerard Hanlon, Author of "The Dark Side of Management" and Professor at Queen Mary’s University of London"In this enjoyable, far-reaching and instructive book, Dunne invites us to explore the very different positions adopted by Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli and Hobbes to better equip us to engage with the meaning, usefulness and morality of persuasion and of its importance at a time when this subtle art is in danger of being displaced by crude coercion." John Desmond, Author of "Consuming Behaviour"
