Warriors’ Words: A Consideration of Language and Leadership

Public discourse receives the concerted attention of linguists, political analysts, and others involved with language as a persuasive tool of communication. Yet sometimes overlooked is the fact that the impact of much modern political communication comes from aesthetic attributes. Effectiveness of delivery, poetry of expression, and emotional investment of the rhetorician give the audience a gauge for determining the speaker’s sincerity.

Warriors’ Words examines leadership in the present century by scrutinizing the oral and written communications of 15 remarkable individuals at critical periods of their lives. Drawing on the words of Mohandas Gandhi, Clarence Darrow, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Joseph McCarthy, Adlai Stevenson, and Martin Luther King, among others, the author shows how language can dramatically transform listeners into agents of change. Moreover, the author analyzes how exemplary rhetoric can promote the development of motivation, the refinement of thought, and the binding together of peoples into positive forces for action. This study of the use and impact of words by significant social figures will be of interest to all students of rhetoric, politics, and history.