This work contributes to the study of theories of rhetoric, writing and communication by asking and attempting to answer a couple key questions regarding the Western rhetorical tradition: How and why have we come to accept a canon of authors whose theories scholars and historians typically refer to as the ?rhetorical tradition? in the West? And how has that tradition continued to shape theories of verbal communication, especially writing in the new field known as ?composition studies? or ?rhetoric and composition?? Unlike like past histories of rhetoric, which tended to be purely descriptive and chronological in nature, this work takes the form of a critical history of the persons and theories that have shaped and molded the Western rhetorical tradition from the Pre-Socratics to the 20th century. By putting these figures and their respective ideas into dialogue with one another, this book seeks to analyze and understand how these thinkers strive to invent their own theories through efforts to revise, complete, and even distort the theories of rivals and precursors.