This book examines a wide swath of political discourse to shed new light on the meaning and significance of eloquence. Roderick P. Hart, a leading scholar of political communication, develops new ways of measuring persuasiveness and rhetorical power through the use of computer-based methods.

Roderick P. Hart holds the Shivers Chair in Communication and is professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a fellow of the International Communication Association, a distinguished scholar of the National Communication Association, and the recipient of the Murray Edelman Career Award from the American Political Science Association. Hart is the author or editor of eighteen books, including most recently Trump and Us: What He Says and Why People Listen (2020) and Civic Hope: How Ordinary Americans Keep Democracy Alive (2018).

1. Eloquence: Why?
2. Eloquence: When and Where?
3. Eloquence: How?
4. Cultural Resonance
5. Personal Investment
6. Poetic Imagination
7. Eloquence Assessed
8. Eloquence Tomorrow
Appendix: "Importance" Versus "Eloquence" Rankings for Twentieth-Century Speeches
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index