The book addresses contemporary views of rhetoric, of its history, and of its impoverished protocol. But its major focus is on reconstructing the past through centering on three documents in particular: Cicero's De oratore (55 BC), Erasmus' De copia (1534), and Thomas Wilson's Discourse on Usury (1572). These often misread works, among others, reveal the contrarianism at the heart of traditional rhetorical invention, in which both, or all, sides of a question must be given a fair hearing. Students of the history of rhetoric, antiquity, the English Renaissance, Cicero, Erasmus, or Thomas Wilson, as well as teachers of composition and even undergraduate debaters will find something of interest in this book.