Conversation - Literature

Literature

Authors who have written extensively on conversation and attempted to analyze its nature include:

  • Milton Wright wrote The Art of Conversation, a comprehensive treatment of the subject, in 1936. The book deals with conversation both for its own sake, and for political, sales, or religious ends. Milton portrays conversation as an art or creation that people can play with and give life to.
  • Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler, and Ron McMillan have written two New York Times bestselling books on conversation. The first one, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, McGraw-Hill, 2002, teaches skills for handling disagreement and high-stakes issues at work and at home. The second book, Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior, McGraw-Hill, 2005, teaches important skills for dealing with accountability issues.
  • Charles Blattberg has written two books defending an approach to politics that emphasizes conversation, in contrast to negotiation, as the preferred means of resolving conflict. His From Pluralist to Patriotic Politics: Putting Practice First, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-19-829688-6, is a work of political philosophy; and his Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for Canada, Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7735-2596-3, applies that philosophy to the Canadian case.
  • Paul Drew & John Heritage - Talk at Work, a study of how conversation changes in social and workplace situations.
  • Neil Postman - Amusing Ourselves to Death (Conversation is not the book's specific focus, but discourse in general gets good treatment here)
  • Deborah Tannen
    • The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words
    • Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends,
    • Gender and Discourse
    • I Only Say This Because I Love You
    • Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work
    • That's Not What I Meant!
    • You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation
  • Daniel Menaker - A Good Talk: The Story and Skill of Conversation (published 2010)
  • Stephen Miller - Conversation: A History of a Declining Art: provides an extensive history of conversation which dates back to the ancient Greeks with Socrates, and moving forward, to coffeehouses around the world, as well as the modern forces of the electronic age, talk shows, etc.

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