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The Art of oratory
But sometimes it was by changing the way posterity has viewed a decision already taken, as Socrates did at his trial even though he was condemned to death. Every speech has been chosen on the basis of its merit. A speech may be and usually is a highly readable essay in the art of immediate persuasion. But it is sometimes more a trigger by which a world historical personage has catapulted mankind into action afterwards. As such, it may have had a more long-term than an immediate impact. For that reason the accompanying remarks explaining the context of every speech and giving an account of the speaker are as vital as the speech itself. The Pedant’s Revolt —
Why most things you think are right are wrong
For example, if you’ve ever been led to believe that coffee sobers up a drunk then you’re mistaken; the caffeine in coffee can only transform a sleepy drunk into a wide-awake drunk. If anyone has convinced you that owls are capable of turning their heads a full 360 degrees, you’ve been misled; though it’s true that owls have considerable ability when it comes to turning their heads, they aren’t able to rotate them through more than 270 degrees. So, those who feel they have been deceived in such matters should prepare to be amused (and amazed) by the facts and disabused of the fiction. The book covers a wide range of topics, from history to science, the arts, the animal kingdom, medicine, the human body, and food and drink, and preserves its well-researched facts in a highly accessible and entertaining manner. The Pedant’s Revolt is guaranteed to inform the misinformed and enlighten the confused. Author and freelance technical writet, Andrea Barham is the acceptable face of pedantry: while she is a big fan of the world, she feels there should be less wrongness and more rightness in it. Painfully aware of her inability to correct the bigger issues such as war, poverty and global warming, she is concentrating on smaller issues more suited to her skills, which consist of ‘looking stuff up’. By correcting common misconceptions, such as the belief that your heart stops when you sneeze, she is hoping that this will have a knock-on effect and eventually all wrongs will be righted, but she is not holding her breath. Serendipities — Language
and Lunacy
The book shows how believers in a flat earth helped Columbus accidentally discover America. How the medieval myth of Prester John, the Christian king in Asia, assisted the European drive eastward. How the myth of the Rosicrucians affected Masons, leading in turn to the widespread belief in a Jewish Masonic plot to dominate the world and other forms of paranoid anti-Semitism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Serendipities is sure to entertain and enlighten any reader with a passion for the curious history of languages and ideas.
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THE speeches in this book
changed history. Sometimes they did so in a straightforward manner, for
instance by bringing about a change of mind, as Wilberforce began to do
over the slave trade.
THE modern age has long
been awash with facts and figures relating to a wealth of different
subjects, but how many of these snippets of information can be verified
as accurate? Which examples of trivia can be proven to be nothing more
than falsehood or fabrication? This intriguing book sets the record
straight by exposing a number of common myths and fallacies that have
become entrenched in everyday thought.
