Max Atkinson's Blog

I mentioned in an earlier post an observation, first reported in my book Our Masters’ Voices , about there being a standard or ‘normal’ b...

About twelve years after the moon landing in 1969, I started writing about the power of rhetorical techniques like the contrast, and remembe...

Speaking in Berlin in 1963, President Kennedy showed how a few words in the local language is a sure fire way of winning approval (in the ...

A lot of commentators have been complaining that President Obama’s inaugural address was a bit short on memorable phrases, and there’s a ver...

When I first started studying bursts of applause in political speeches thirty years ago, some people couldn’t see the point; others thought ...