Battle Exhortation: The Rhetoric of Combat Leadership

by Keith Yellin

Overview

A commanding study of the motivational speech of military leaders across the centuries

In this groundbreaking examination of the symbolic strategies used to prepare troops for imminent combat, Keith Yellin offers an interdisciplinary look into the rhetorical discourse that has played a prominent role in warfare, history, and popular culture from antiquity to the present day. Battle Exhortation focuses on one of the most time-honored forms of motivational communication, the encouraging speech of military commanders, to offer a pragmatic and scholarly evaluation of how persuasion contributes to combat leadership and military morale.

In illustrating his subject's conventions, Yellin draws from the Bible, classical Greece and Rome, Spanish conquistadors, and American military forces. Yellin is also interested in how audiences are socialized to recognize and anticipate this type of communication that precedes difficult team efforts. To account for this dimension he probes examples as diverse as Shakespeare's Henry V, George C. Scott's portrayal of General George S. Patton, and team sports.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611173567
Publisher:	University of South Carolina Press
Publication date:	06/10/2013
Series:	Studies in Rhetoric & Communication
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	897 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Keith Yellin is a former U.S. Marine Corps captain, an independent scholar, and a corporate communicator in North Texas.

Table of Contents

Series Editor's Preface     ix
Acknowledgments     xi
Introduction     1
Bracing for Combat     7
Previous Consideration     10
Defining Exemplar: Mantinea, 418 B.C.E.     23
Auditory Dimensions     30
Encouraging Directions     35
Summary     43
Indoctrination     44
Recruits All     44
Fraternal Standing in Plutarch's Spartan Mother     49
Fraternal Standing in Shakespeare's Henry V     53
Ethos Matters: George C. Scott's Patton     60
Bill Murray's Parody in Stripes     70
Summary     76
Tensions     78
Managing Reputation: George Washington versus Daniel Morgan     78
Managing Distance at Second Manassas and San Juan Heights     87
Managing Violence in the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts     94
Managing Love: Julius Caesar and the Tenth Legion     101
Summary     108
Evolutions     110
Eisenhower on D-Day     110
Ridgway's Turn     115
Slide into Oblivion     120
Return Transformed: Schwarzkopf and Franks     127
Differences by Combat Arm     135
Summary     143
Conclusion     144
Notes     151
Bibliography     173
Index     183
About the Author     193

What People are Saying About This

Colonel Benjamin L. Abramowitz

In Battle Exhortation Keith Yellin develops an area that has been but a sidebar in the study of military leadership and raises it to the same level of importance as the execution of military plans. Success on the battlefield is much more than understanding the enemy and appreciating the weather and terrain. Words are important. Yellin provides the 'soul dimension' to the study of military history and leadership. This work is a must-read for practitioners and students of military leadership.

Brigadier General Thomas Draude

Yellin has produced the most comprehensive study of battle exhortations that I've ever read.... Leaders at any level, in uniform or mufti, will benefit from this enjoyable work. It is a treasure that should grace the libraries of those who lead or aspire to lead.

Peter Hunt

Battle Exhortation is a fascinating and wide-ranging book on a neglected, but important, topic: the rhetoric at work in the speeches of military commanders bracing their men for imminent combat. With its well-chosen examples spanning three millennia, its insightful readings, and interdisciplinary approach this lively study will be of great interest to students and scholars of military history, the literature of war, sociology, and rhetoric.

Editorial Reviews

Battle Exhortation is a fascinating and wide-ranging book on a neglected, but important, topic: the rhetoric at work in the speeches of military commanders bracing their men for imminent combat. With its well-chosen examples spanning three millennia, its insightful readings, and interdisciplinary approach this lively study will be of great interest to students and scholars of military history, the literature of war, sociology, and rhetoric.�Peter Hunt, author of War, Peace, and Alliance in Demosthenes� Athens

Yellin has produced the most comprehensive study of battle exhortations that I�ve ever read. . . . Leaders at any level, in uniform or mufti, will benefit from this enjoyable work. It is a treasure that should grace the libraries of those who lead or aspire to lead.�Brigadier General Thomas Draude, USMC (Ret.)

From the Publisher