How to Win Every Argument
The title is a lie. You already know that going in. No book can make you win every argument, and Madsen Pirie knows it. What he offers instead is something far more interesting: a lovingly curated catalog of every dirty trick, logical sleight-of-hand, and rhetorical weapon humans have devised to make their point stick. It's not a guide to truth. It's a guide to victory. And it is absolutely delightful. Pirie is not a neutral observer. He is President of the Adam Smith Institute, a think tank that has spent decades arguing for free markets and limited government. He taught philosophy and logic at Hillsdale College. He appears on CNN and BBC . He is, in other words, a professional arguer, and this book is his trade secrets. What makes the book work is Pirie's voice. He writes with wit, with mischief, with the obvious joy of someone who has spent his life watching people talk past each other and has decided to document every move. This is not a dry textbook. It is a performan...