This expansive volume traces the rhetoric of reform across American
history, examining such pivotal periods as the American Revolution,
slavery, McCarthyism, and today's gay liberation movement. At a time
when social movements led by religious leaders, from Louis Farrakhan
to Pat Buchanan, are playing a central role in American politics,
James Darsey connects this radical tradition with its prophetic
roots.
Public discourse in the West is derived from the Greek principles of
civility, diplomacy, compromise, and negotiation. On this model,
radical speech is often taken to be a sympton of social disorder. Not
so, contends Darsey, who argues that the rhetoric of reform in
America represents the continuation of a tradition separate from the
commonly accepted principles of the Greeks. Though the links have
gone unrecognized, the American radical tradition stems not from
Aristotle, he maintains, but from the prophets of the Hebrew Bible.
