Rhetoric is an ancient Greek treatise on the art of persuasion still considered “the most important work on persuasion ever written”. Rhetoric is structured in three books: a general overview, a detailed treatment of the three means of persuasion, and a discussion of elements of style.  It was not written for publication, but is rather a collection of student notes from his many lectures and reflects the gradual evolution of thinking about the subject over a period of sixty years. It was a hotly debated topic at the time, with the sophists on one side accused of manipulating listeners through emotion and omission of facts by the philosophers Socrates,Plato and Aristotle. Plato’s opinion of rhetoric as immoral, dangerous and not worth studying evolved over time to a moderate respect for the ability to “win the soul through discourse”. Aristotle undertook the first systematic study of the basic techniques of rhetoric during two periods, first at Plato’s Academy from 367-347 BC and then at his own school, the Lyceum, during 335-322 BC.  His genius was to position rhetoric alongside logic and the dialectic as one of three key elements of philosophy. Reason was the tool to derive scientific certainty, while the other two dealt with probability, with dialectic the tool for philosophical debate and rhetoric the tool for practical debate.  In doing so he elevated the discipline to a system for persuasion based on knowledge instead of manipulation. One cannot fail to be illuminated and find much of use in this first book on the subject which may well also be the last word.

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