Culminating a decade of conferences that have explored presidential 
speech, The Prospect of Presidential Rhetoric assesses progress 
and suggests directions for both the practice of presidential speech 
and its study.

    In Part One, following an analytic review of the field by Martin 
Medhurst, contributors address the state of the art in their own areas 
of expertise. Roderick P. Hart then summarizes their work in the 
course of his rebuttal of an argument made by political scientist 
George Edwards: that presidential rhetoric lacks political impact.

    Part Two of the volume consists of the forward-looking reports of 
six task forces, comprising more than forty scholars, charged with 
outlining the likely future course of presidential rhetoric, as well as 
the major questions scholars should ask about it and the tools at 
their disposal.

    The Prospect of Presidential Rhetoric will serve as a pivotal 
work for students and scholars of public discourse and the 
presidency who seek to understand the shifting landscape of 
American political leadership.

_________________________________________________________

JAMES ARNT AUNE, a professor of communication at Texas A&M 
University, is the coeditor of one previous volume in the 
Presidential Rhetoric Series, Civil Rights Rhetoric and the American 
Presidency (2005), and the author of several other books on 
rhetoric. MARTIN J. MEDHURST is the founding editor of the 
Presidential Rhetoric Series and the prime mover behind the ten 
conferences on that topic held at Texas A&M University as a program 
of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service. This 
volume is the outgrowth of the last of those conferences. Medhurst is 
now a Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric and Communication at 
Baylor University.


Number Eighteen: Presidential Rhetoric Series