Harry Emerson Fosdick: Persuasive Preacher

(Hardback)

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Description

This volume examines the persuasive ministry of the Reverend Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, analyzing his delivery, style, invention, and persuasion strategies. It is the first book to review Fosdick's oratory and explain his process of creating persuasive, effective sermons. It combines speech texts and an extensive bibliography with a critical interpretation of his famous homilies and addresses and it brings together in one concise text a definitive alphabetical calendar of speeches, a chronology of sermons keyed to his numerous books, and a detailed bibliography of works by and about Fosdick. This fascinating study provides a valuable new research tool in the study of rhetoric. From Puritan times to the present, religious rhetoric has played an important role in the political and social life of the United States and has occasionally revealed the highest and lowest attainments of Americans. This volume, the second in a series of book-length studies on great American orators, examines the persuasive ministry of the Reverend Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick and analyzes his delivery, style, invention, and persuasive strategies. It is the first book to review Fosdick's oratory and explain his process of creating persuasive, effective sermons. It combines speech texts and an extensive bibliography with a critical interpretation of his famous homilies and addresses and it brings together in one concise text a definitive alphabetical calendar of speeches, a chronology of sermons keyed to his numerous books, and a detailed bibliography of works by and about Fosdick. Of special note is the inclusion of the famous Shall the Fundamentalists Win sermon, with never-before-published additions and subtractions, and the ad lib additions and deletions from speech text and recordings of the Handling Life's Second-Bests sermon. This fascinating study provides a valuable new research tool in the study of rhetoric.

Reviews

. . . Ryan fills a niche in Fosdick studies by providing a calendar of Fosdick's sermons, a chronology of his speeches, and a thorough bibliography. . . . Comtemporary preachers - fundamentalist, modernist, or otherwise - can benefit from studying Fosdick's artistry with words. Ryan's book is a fine place to start. This is a volume theoolgical libraries ought to have and preachers would be wise to read.-Southwest Journal of Theology
. . . Ryan's work shows long toil in these sources. The book is a stimulus to further research on this fascinating man whom one contemporary called a "well-scrubbed butcher boy."-The Journal of Religion
. . . The Great American Orators series attempts to provide insights into the history of public address in America. Ryan's book achieves the goal admirably. It provides a new look at a neglected orator as well as furnishing an example of solid criticism for students of public address. Hopefully, later additions to the Great American Orators series will live up to the standard of excellence set by Halford R. Ryan. If they do, the series will indeed achieve Ryan and Duffy's goal of supplying new understanding of the history and criticism of American public address.-Quarterly Journal of Speech
Halford Ryan is professor of public speaking at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. This volume, which follows the plan of other volumes in the series, focuses on the orator Harry Emerson Fosdick (1879-1969), one of the outstanding preachers in the history of the United States, especially on his status as a rhetorician, a practitioner of the art of persuasive discourse. Part I is a critical analysis of Fosdick and his speeches. Part II contains: 1) five of his sermons or speeches; 2) a calendar of this sermons; 3) a calendar of his secular addresses; 4) a bibliography of manuscript collections, audio and video collections, books, articles, and other pieces by Fosdick; and books, articles, and dissertations about him.-Theology Digest
." . . Ryan fills a niche in Fosdick studies by providing a calendar of Fosdick's sermons, a chronology of his speeches, and a thorough bibliography. . . . Comtemporary preachers - fundamentalist, modernist, or otherwise - can benefit from studying Fosdick's artistry with words. Ryan's book is a fine place to start. This is a volume theoolgical libraries ought to have and preachers would be wise to read."-Southwest Journal of Theology
." . . Ryan's work shows long toil in these sources. The book is a stimulus to further research on this fascinating man whom one contemporary called a "well-scrubbed butcher boy.""-The Journal of Religion
." . . The Great American Orators series attempts to provide insights into the history of public address in America. Ryan's book achieves the goal admirably. It provides a new look at a neglected orator as well as furnishing an example of solid criticism for students of public address. Hopefully, later additions to the Great American Orators series will live up to the standard of excellence set by Halford R. Ryan. If they do, the series will indeed achieve Ryan and Duffy's goal of supplying new understanding of the history and criticism of American public address."-Quarterly Journal of Speech
"Halford Ryan is professor of public speaking at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. This volume, which follows the plan of other volumes in the series, focuses on the orator Harry Emerson Fosdick (1879-1969), one of the outstanding preachers in the history of the United States, especially on his status as a rhetorician, a practitioner of the art of persuasive discourse. Part I is a critical analysis of Fosdick and his speeches. Part II contains: 1) five of his sermons or speeches; 2) a calendar of this sermons; 3) a calendar of his secular addresses; 4) a bibliography of manuscript collections, audio and video collections, books, articles, and other pieces by Fosdick; and books, articles, and dissertations about him."-Theology Digest

Author Bio

HALFORD R. RYAN is Professor of Public Speaking at Washington and Lee University, Virginia. He is the author of American Rhetoric from Roosevelt to Reagan: A Collection of Speeches and Critical Essays, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's Rhetorical Presidency (Greenwood Press,1988). He has contributed extensively to the Quarterly Journal of Speech, the Presidential Studies Quarterly, and Speaker and Gavel.