Conversation

The story of the rise and fall of the art of conversation in Western civilization.

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, 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 during "The Age of Conversation" and examines how this era ended.

Turning his attention to the United States, Miller 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 to diminish the art of conversation.

"'A charming (and alarming) history of conversation, as elegantly affable as the conversationalists Miller admires.' Michael Bywater, The Independent

"This entertaining study will enliven many a dinner-party discussion." Alexander Larman, New Statesman