This is the first book to offer a cross-cultural overview of rhetoric as a universal feature of expression,
composition, and communication. Kennedy addresses both what is general or common in all rhetorical traditions and
what is unique or unusual in the western tradition. He explores analogies to human rhetoric in animal communication,
possible rhetorical factors in the origin of human speech, and rhetorical conventions in traditionally oral societies
in Australia, the South Pacific, Africa, and the Americas. The second half of the book provides an account of rhetoric
as understood and practiced in early literate societies in the Near East, China, India, Greece, and Rome, identifying
unique or unusual features of western discourse in comparison to uses elsewhere. The concluding chapter summarizes
the results of the study and evaluates the validity of traditional western rhetorical concepts in describing non-western
rhetoric.
Table of Contents
PART I: RHETORIC IN SOCIETIES WITHOUT WRITING
1. Rhetoric Among Social Animals
2. Rhetorical Factors in the Early Development of Human Language
3. Rhetoric in Aboriginal Australian Culture
4. Formal Speech in Some Oral Cultures
5. North American Indian Rhetoric
PART II: RHETORIC IN ANCIENT LITERATE SOCIETIES
6. Literacy and Rhetoric in the Ancient Near East
7. Rhetoric in Ancient China
8. Rhetoric in Ancient India
9. Rhetoric in Greece and Rome
