TY - JOUR
T1 - Logic and rhetoric in Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798
AU - Walzer, Arthur E.
PY - 1987/2
Y1 - 1987/2
N2 - Robert Thomas Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population, written to refute the optimistic predictions of the Marquis de Condor-cet and William Godwin, was acknowledged by contemporaries to be one of the most powerful works of its age. This article reviews the historical circumstances that disposed Malthus’s readers to his views and, especially, analyzes the rhetoric of the Essay itself in an effort to explain the causes of Malthus’s decisive victory over his opponents and to locate the sources of the Essay’s enduring power.
AB - Robert Thomas Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population, written to refute the optimistic predictions of the Marquis de Condor-cet and William Godwin, was acknowledged by contemporaries to be one of the most powerful works of its age. This article reviews the historical circumstances that disposed Malthus’s readers to his views and, especially, analyzes the rhetoric of the Essay itself in an effort to explain the causes of Malthus’s decisive victory over his opponents and to locate the sources of the Essay’s enduring power.
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U2 - 10.1080/00335638709383791
DO - 10.1080/00335638709383791
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0345934782
SN - 0033-5630
VL - 73
SP - 1
EP - 17
JO - Quarterly Journal of Speech
JF - Quarterly Journal of Speech
IS - 1
ER -