Can I read Conversation : A History of a Declining Art on EtoBox?

Conversation : A History of a Declining Art by Stephen Miller is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is Conversation : A History of a Declining Art about?

Essayist Stephen Miller pursues a lifelong interest in conversation by taking an historical and philosophical view of the subject. He chronicles the art of conversation in Western civilization from its beginnings in ancient Greece to its apex in eighteenth-century Britain to its current endangered state in America. As Harry G. Frankfurt brought wide attention to the art of bullshit in his recent bestselling __On Bullshit__, so Miller now brings the art of conversation into the light, revealing why good conversation matters and why it is in decline. Miller explores the conversation about conversation among such great writers as Cicero, Montaigne, Swift, Defoe, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and Virginia Woolf. He focuses on the world of British coffeehouses and clubs in The Age of Conversation” and examines how this era ended. Turning his attention to the United States, the author traces a prolonged decline in the theory and practice of conversation from Benjamin Franklin through Hemingway to Dick Cheney. He cites our technology (iPods, cell phones, and video games) and our insistence on unguarded forthrightness as well as our fear of being judgmental as powerful forces that are likely

Who reads Conversation : A History of a Declining Art?

Author

Stephen Miller

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published

2006

Language

EN

ISBN

9780300130188

Category

nonfiction

Subjects

History, Sociology, Language Learning

Rating

3.17 / 5 (87 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14