Winning Arguments: What Works and Doesn't Work in Politics, the Bedroom, the Courtroom, and the Classroom

by Stanley Fish

Overview

“Fish mines cultural touchstones from Milton to ‘Married with Children’ to explain how various types of arguments are structured and how that understanding can lead to victory” — New York Times Book Review

A lively and accessible guide to understanding rhetoric by the world class English and Law professor and bestselling author of How to Write a Sentence.

Filled with the wit and observational prowess that shaped Stanley Fish’s acclaimed bestseller How to Write a Sentence, Winning Arguments guides readers through the “greatest hits” of rhetoric. In this clever and engaging guide, Fish offers insight and outlines the crucial keys you need to win any debate, anywhere, anytime—drawn from landmark legal cases, politics, his own career, and even popular film and television. A celebration of clashing minds and viewpoints, Winning Arguments is sure to become a classic. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062226679
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	07/04/2017
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	263,020
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Stanley Fish is a professor of law at Florida International University in Miami, and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He has also taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, and Duke University. He is the author of fourteen books, most recently Fugitive in Flight and Save the World on Your Own Time. He lives in Andes, New York, and New York City.

Table of Contents

Introduction, or What This Book Promises to Do 1

Chapter 1 Living in a World of Argument 5

Chapter 2 Political Arguments 49

Chapter 3 Domestic Arguments 97

Chapter 4 Legal Arguments 129

Chapter 5 Academic Arguments 159

Chapter 6 Why We Can't Get Along 191

Acknowledgments 213

Editorial Reviews

A guided tour through some of the most beautiful, arresting sentences in the English language.

Slate on HOW TO WRITE A SENTENCE

Both deeper and more democratic than The Elements of Style.

Financial Times on HOW TO WRITE A SENTENCE

[Fish] shares his connoisseurship of the elegant sentence.

New Yorker on HOW TO WRITE A SENTENCE

How to Write a Sentence is a must read for aspiring writers and anyone who wants to deepen their appreciation of literature. If extraordinary sentences are like sports plays, Fish is the Vin Scully of great writing.

Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein