Richard F. Miller, Fighting Words - Political Pistachio Radio Revolution

Words mean something. In battle speeches the words used can mean the difference between success and failure. In Fighting Words, author Richard F. Miller looks to some of history's most successful battle speechmakers to answer age-old questions. How did Pope Urban II's speech convince tens of thousands of Europeans to wage the First Crusade, a dangerous, and for many, a one-way journey to Jerusalem? How did George Patton's speech transform the green kids of the Third Army into the terror of the Third Reich? How did the words of General David Petraeus resurrect a losing effort in Iraq and in the process, retrain his soldiers for a new kind of war? Miller argues that human persuasion is seamless and that the persuasive strategies by which people are recruited, trained, and exhorted for war can be applied to politics and business. Be it a convenience store or a Fortune 500 company-motivating, instructing, and preparing your people to perform their jobs is, for the competent manager, Job One. And for those who recognize that in this partisan age, politics is just war by other means, Fighting Words applies the insights of battle speeches to politics. Miller concludes his study by analyzing three of President Obama's most successful and controversial speeches based on the lessons learned from the great military motivators of history. Miller doesn't speculate about "what works" on the public podium. Rather, he analyzes real historical examples and extracts their lessons-from Alexander the Great to General David H. Petraeus and President Obama. As Miller aptly demonstrates, persuasive strategies based on love, hate, duty, patriotism, comradeship, fear, and shame are as widely used today as they were in antiquity. Richard F. Miller is our guest tonight on the Political Pistachio Radio Revolution.