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Book Reviews 135 (283). While the movement did not end the war, Schulzinger argues, "it did alter, almost irrevocably, the perceptions of ordinary citizens of their society and their government" (245). Schulzinger continues the recent trend of more thoroughly exploring the role of key members of Congress in the Vietnam War. While more investigation and analysis of the role of Congress is welcome, a danger is that too much emphasis is placed on members whose papers are easily accessible and too little on those whose papers are not. As it is, Schulzinger utilized congressional papers from Oregon to Georgia, which merits note for the unique insights generated from a previously under-appreciated resource. While the requirements of publishers may limit the length and breadth of books, A Time for War would have benefited from a more thorough discussion of the situations in Laos and Cambodia. The war involved all of Indochina, and an understanding of the situations in all three nations of the former French colony helps to contextualize more fully what occurred in Vietnam. A more thorough discussion of the Vietnamese people—of both our allies and our opponents—also would have strengthened the analysis. Those minor criticisms aside, however, Schulzinger's A Time for War is a study worthy of close scholarly and public attention, one that will likely emerge as a major text in courses about the war. Gregory A. Olson University of Wisconsin—Oshkosh Communicative Interaction, Power, and the State: A Method. By F. M. Stark. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996; pp. xi + 227. $55.00. The turn toward examining politics and public policy rhetorically has come to fruition. Scholars now recognize the inherently rhetorical nature of politics (campaigns and elections) as well as governance (policy advocacy). What is less clear is how both public address and rhetorical theory are perceived by those interested in the communicative and rhetorical dimensions of public officials' discourses. Frank Stark, eschewing the more fashionable intellectual currents of the moment, synthesizes contributions from symbolic interaction (Mead), dramatism (Burke), and structuration theory (Giddens) in an effort to "build a framework for theory and research about communication, power, and the state" (ix). For scholars in rhetorical and communication studies, Stark's theoretical foundation will be largely familiar. Indeed, his configuration of Mead's interactionist philosophy is obviously symbolic and communicative. For Stark, Mead provides the basic tenets of a communicative conceptualization of the state: "Mead might say that the state acts as the reflection of the ideologies and cultures of the social groups and classes .. . which it comprises" (45). Blending symbolic interactionism and dramatism to 136 Rhetoric & Public Affairs produce his rhetorical perspective, Stark develops a flexible orientation to the state and its exercise of power focused on symbols and the purposeful, strategic production of discourses. It is in examining the state exercise of power (through rhetorical discourse) that Stark turns explicitly to Burkean dramatism and the rhetorical nature of the state. Returning to the Grammar of Motives, Stark builds a methodological approach that draws heavüy from Burke's pentad. Stark argues, however, that understanding the motives behind state rhetorics requires a closer and deeper examination of the context and mechanisms of decision making and public communication. To this end, Stark offers historiography and ethnography, wedded to interactionist and dramatistic lenses, as methods to uncover the complex of state rhetorics and attendant exercises of power, which are tested in case studies of Canada and Cameroon. There is much to commend in Stark's book. His building on the strengths of a variety of interactionist thinkers—Mead, Duncan, Goffman, Burke, Edelman, Gusfield—is balanced with solutions to their limitations. Indeed, the deployment of Giddens's structurational model is indicative of Stark's concern with Mead's optimism , as weU as with the problem of altering state structures and practices. Rhetoricians and communication scholars will recognize and appreciate many of Stark's conceptual concerns and remedies. Perhaps the clearest contribution of Stark's work is found in "Rhetoric and Public Policy." The conclusion of this chapter summarizes the core issue of the project, and hints at the book's heuristic value. "A fundamental question," Stark writes, "concerns the close relationship between rhetoric as...

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