In recent years there has been a revival of interest in the writings of Baltasar Gracian, a 17th-century Spanish Jesuit whose writings explore the political uses of rhetoric. Best known in the United States for his bestselling collection of aphorisms entitled "The Art of Worldly Wisdom", his pragmatic philosophy has been influential in Europe as well. The essays in this volume focus on the relevance of Gracian in the late-20th century, when the importance of rhetoric as a discipline necessary to manage public life is indisputable. The contributors argue that the so-called "new world order", with its implication that anything done in the name of democracy is acceptable, is actually an old idea, stretching back to the sophists of ancient Greece and beyond. Ranging in focus and theoretical perspective from Lacanian psychoanalysis to the sociology of everyday life, from considerations of aesthetics and philosophy to examinations of the baroque, these essays demonstrate that Gracian's work offers many remedies for the crises of the "fin de millennium".
