
The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself
The Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $17.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Kim Niemi
-
By:
-
Robin Reames
About this listen
The discipline of rhetoric was the keystone of Western education for over two thousand years. Only recently has its perceived importance faded.
In this book, renowned rhetorical scholar Robin Reames argues that, in today's polarized political climate, we should all care deeply about learning rhetoric. Drawing on examples ranging from the destructive ancient Greek demagogue Alcibiades to modern-day conspiracists like Alex Jones, Reames breaks down the major techniques of rhetoric, pulling back the curtain on how politicians, journalists, and "journalists" convince us to believe what we believe—and to talk, vote, and act accordingly. Understanding these techniques helps us avoid being manipulated by authority figures who don't have our best interests at heart. It also grants us rare insight into the values that shape our own beliefs. Learning rhetoric, Reames argues, doesn't teach us what to think but how to think—allowing us to understand our own and others' ideological commitments in a completely new way.
Thoughtful, nuanced, and leavened with dry humor, The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself offers an antidote to our polarized, post-truth world.
©2024 Robin Reames (P)2024 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Socratic Method
- A Practitioner’s Handbook
- By: Ward Farnsworth
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
About 2,500 years ago, Plato wrote a set of dialogues that depict Socrates in conversation. The way Socrates asks questions, and the reasons why, amount to a whole way of thinking. This is the Socratic method - one of humanity’s great achievements. More than a technique, the method is an ethic of patience, inquiry, humility, and doubt. It is an aid to better thinking, and a remedy for bad habits of mind, whether in law, politics, the classroom, or tackling life’s big questions at the kitchen table.
-
-
Needs a new version
- By Robin Hampton on 11-01-21
By: Ward Farnsworth
-
Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric
- By: Ward Farnsworth
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot, Jim Meskimen
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Masters of language can turn unassuming words into phrases that are beautiful, effective, and memorable. What are the secrets of this alchemy? Part of the answer lies in rhetorical figures: practical ways of applying great aesthetic principles to a simple sentence or paragraph. Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric recovers this knowledge for our times. It amounts to a tutorial on eloquence conducted by Churchill and Lincoln, Dickens and Melville, Burke and Paine, and more than a hundred others.
-
-
A little unwieldy for audio
- By Coral on 05-26-14
By: Ward Farnsworth
-
The Anatomy of Genres
- How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works
- By: John Truby
- Narrated by: Nick Mondelli
- Length: 22 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most people think genres are simply categories on Netflix or Amazon that provide a helpful guide to making entertainment choices. Most people are wrong. Genre stories aren’t just a small subset of the films, video games, TV shows, and books that people consume. They are the all-stars of the entertainment world, comprising the vast majority of popular stories worldwide. That’s why businesses—movie studios, production companies, video game studios, and publishing houses—buy and sell them. Legendary writing teacher John Truby provides a guide to understanding the major genres of the story world.
-
-
Audible is not the best medium for this book
- By Ken on 02-13-25
By: John Truby
-
Uncertain
- The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure
- By: Maggie Jackson
- Narrated by: Maggie Jackson
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an era of terrifying unpredictability, we race to address complex crises with quick, sure algorithms, bullet points, and tweets. How could we find the clarity and vision so urgently needed today by being unsure? Uncertain is about the triumph of doing just that. A scientific adventure set on the front lines of a volatile era, this epiphany of a book by award-winning author Maggie Jackson shows us how to skillfully confront the unexpected and the unknown, and how to harness not-knowing in the service of wisdom, invention, mutual understanding, and resilience.
By: Maggie Jackson
-
Creative Evolution
- By: Henri Bergson
- Narrated by: Michael Lunts
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in French in 1907, Henri Bergson's L'évolution créatrice is a scintillating and radical work by one of the great French philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This outstanding new translation, the first for over a hundred years, brings one of Bergson's most important and ambitious works to a new generation.
-
-
I recommend this recording of the book, not the other one!
- By M.Biblioswine on 01-09-24
By: Henri Bergson
-
Breakfast of Champions
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: John Malkovich
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Breakfast of Champions (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to Slaughterhouse-Five, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation.
-
-
Kurt Was Right to Grade This a C
- By Dubi on 01-10-16
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
The Socratic Method
- A Practitioner’s Handbook
- By: Ward Farnsworth
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
About 2,500 years ago, Plato wrote a set of dialogues that depict Socrates in conversation. The way Socrates asks questions, and the reasons why, amount to a whole way of thinking. This is the Socratic method - one of humanity’s great achievements. More than a technique, the method is an ethic of patience, inquiry, humility, and doubt. It is an aid to better thinking, and a remedy for bad habits of mind, whether in law, politics, the classroom, or tackling life’s big questions at the kitchen table.
-
-
Needs a new version
- By Robin Hampton on 11-01-21
By: Ward Farnsworth
-
Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric
- By: Ward Farnsworth
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot, Jim Meskimen
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Masters of language can turn unassuming words into phrases that are beautiful, effective, and memorable. What are the secrets of this alchemy? Part of the answer lies in rhetorical figures: practical ways of applying great aesthetic principles to a simple sentence or paragraph. Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric recovers this knowledge for our times. It amounts to a tutorial on eloquence conducted by Churchill and Lincoln, Dickens and Melville, Burke and Paine, and more than a hundred others.
-
-
A little unwieldy for audio
- By Coral on 05-26-14
By: Ward Farnsworth
-
The Anatomy of Genres
- How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works
- By: John Truby
- Narrated by: Nick Mondelli
- Length: 22 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most people think genres are simply categories on Netflix or Amazon that provide a helpful guide to making entertainment choices. Most people are wrong. Genre stories aren’t just a small subset of the films, video games, TV shows, and books that people consume. They are the all-stars of the entertainment world, comprising the vast majority of popular stories worldwide. That’s why businesses—movie studios, production companies, video game studios, and publishing houses—buy and sell them. Legendary writing teacher John Truby provides a guide to understanding the major genres of the story world.
-
-
Audible is not the best medium for this book
- By Ken on 02-13-25
By: John Truby
-
Uncertain
- The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure
- By: Maggie Jackson
- Narrated by: Maggie Jackson
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an era of terrifying unpredictability, we race to address complex crises with quick, sure algorithms, bullet points, and tweets. How could we find the clarity and vision so urgently needed today by being unsure? Uncertain is about the triumph of doing just that. A scientific adventure set on the front lines of a volatile era, this epiphany of a book by award-winning author Maggie Jackson shows us how to skillfully confront the unexpected and the unknown, and how to harness not-knowing in the service of wisdom, invention, mutual understanding, and resilience.
By: Maggie Jackson
-
Creative Evolution
- By: Henri Bergson
- Narrated by: Michael Lunts
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in French in 1907, Henri Bergson's L'évolution créatrice is a scintillating and radical work by one of the great French philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This outstanding new translation, the first for over a hundred years, brings one of Bergson's most important and ambitious works to a new generation.
-
-
I recommend this recording of the book, not the other one!
- By M.Biblioswine on 01-09-24
By: Henri Bergson
-
Breakfast of Champions
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: John Malkovich
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Breakfast of Champions (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to Slaughterhouse-Five, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation.
-
-
Kurt Was Right to Grade This a C
- By Dubi on 01-10-16
By: Kurt Vonnegut