This analysis of the rhetoric of nine successfully persuasive politicians explains how their use of language created credible and consistent stories about themselves and the social world they inhabit. It explores their use of metaphors, their myths and how language analysis helps us to understand how politicians are able to persuade.

JONATHAN CHARTERIS-BLACK is Professor of Linguistics at the University of the West of England, UK. He is the author of Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis (2004); Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor (2005); The Communication of Leadership (2010) and (with Seale, C) Gender and the Language of Illness (2010) as well as numerous other articles and book chapters.