Talking Democracy: Historical Perspectives on Rhetoric and Democracy. Edited by Benedetto Fontana, Cary J. Nederman, and Gary Remer. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004. 337p. $55.00.

This edited volume of eleven chapters draws from sources as diverse as Thucydides, Plato, Cicero, St. Augustine, John of Salisbury, Christine de Pizan, and John Stuart Mill. On the one hand, the volume is intended as a selective but wide-ranging study of the history of the theory and practice of rhetoric. As the editors Benedetto Fontana, Cary J. Nederman, and Gary Remer stress in the Introduction, the essays are “committed to a historical analysis of their subject matter” (p. 20). But the volume is much more than an exercise in historical analysis or an intellectual history of theoretical reflections on rhetoric. The essays are drawn together into a genuine whole by an argument that runs throughout the book.