San Antonio College Library

The Teleological Discourse of Barack Obama, by Richard Leeman, provides an in-depth analysis of President Barack Obama's speeches and writings to explain the power of the 44th president's speaking. This book argues that, from his earliest writings through his latest presidential speeches, Obama has described the world through a teleological lens. Teleology is the philosophy of discovering in the essential nature of humans or countries the telos, or...

The Morality of Spin explores the ethics of political rhetoric crafted to persuade and possibly manipulate potential voters. Based on extensive insider interviews with leaders of Focus on the Family, one of the most powerful Christian right organizations in America, Nathaniel Klemp asks whether the tactic of tailoring a message to a particular audience is politically legitimate or amounts to democratic malpractice. Klemp's nuanced assessment, highlighting...

This program with Bill Moyers explores the uses and abuses of political language and how the democratic conversation has been frustrated and trivialized by the new jargon of politics. Appearing in the program are Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Dean of the Annenberg School for Communications; noted media commentator Edwin Diamond; E.J. Dionne, author of Why Americans Hate Politics; and U.S. representatives Barney Frank, Dave Obey, Susan Molinari, and Ileana...

"In this book, George Edwards analyzes the results of hundreds of public opinion polls from recent presidencies to assess the success of these efforts. Surprisingly, he finds that presidents typically are not able to change public opinion, even great, communicators usually fail to obtain the public's support for their high-priority initiatives. According to Edwards, the bully pulpit has proven infective not only for achieving majority support but...

The book examines how presidents from FDR to Clinton have approached speechwriting and how this impacted their presidency.

In this book, the author maintains that religious discourses have curiously figured as some of the most potent and pervasive forms of queer expression and activism throughout the twentieth century. He focuses on how queers have assumed religious rhetoric strategically to respond to the violence done against them.

"For almost thirty years, William F. Gavin wrote speeches at the highest levels of government. Speechwright is his insider's view of politics, a shrewd critique of presidential and congressional rhetoric, and a personal look at the political leaders for whom he wrote speeches. While serving President Richard Nixon and candidate Ronald Reagan, Gavin advocated for "working rhetoric"--Well-crafted, clear, hard-hitting arguments that did not off er visions...

This work is a contemporary chronicle of the Cold War and offers an analysis policy and rhetoric of the United States and Soviet Union during the 1980s. The authors examine the assumptions that drove political decisions and the rhetoric that defined the relationship as the Soviet Union began to implode. This work demonstrates that while the subsequent unraveling of the Soviet empire was an unintended side effect of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, termination...

"In this study, Stephen John Hartnett explores the "cultural fictions" that accompanied and undergirded public debates in antebellum America regarding abolition and capitalism, race and slavery, manifest destiny and empire, and representation and self-making." "Drawing on a rich array of persuasive materials - including speeches and debates, novels and poems, newspaper articles and advertisements, daguerreotypes and paintings, protest pamphlets, reform...