Conversation : a history of a declining art
Chronicles the art of conversation in Western civilization from its beginnings in ancient Greece to its apex in eighteenth-century Britain to its endangered state in America. This book shows why good conversation matters and why it is in decline. It focuses on the world of British coffeehouses and clubs and examines how this era ended.
Print Book, English, 2007
Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 2007
1 volume ; 22 cm
9780300123654, 0300123655
1017236764
Conversations and its discontents
Ancient conversation: from the Book of Job to Plato's Symposium
Three factors affecting conversation: religion, commerce, women
The age of conversation: eighteenth-century Britain
Samuel Johnson: a conversational triumph; lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Conversation lost
Conversation in decline: from raillery to reverie
Conversation in America: from Benjamin Franklin to Dale Carnegie
Modern enemies of conversation: from countercultural theorists to "White Negroes"
The ways we don't converse now
The end of conversation?
Originally published: 2006