BOOK REVIEW Edward M. Clift (ed): How Language is Used to do Business: Essays on the Rhetoric of Economics The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, 2008, 462 pp, ISBN-10:0-7734-5143-9 Cyril Nhlanhla Mbatha Received: 20 November 2008 / Accepted: 20 November 2008 / Published online: 11 December 2008 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2008 The chapters of this book came from 17 papers discussed at the Millikin conference on Rhetoric & Economics in 2005. Twenty-five participants from a background mix of economics and language arts attended the conference where all papers were presented and discussed in plenary sessions. Attempting to expand on the works of McCloskey (1985) and others (e.g. Klamer 1988), the chapters cover and discuss a wide body of evidence supporting the overwhelming prevalence of rhetorical performances 1 in academic debates in the discipline of economics as well as in business and government sector activities. McCloskey’s (1985) book The Rhetoric of Economics challenged the widely held notion that economists in academic departments are engaged in scientific and non- normative scholarly enquiry. She proposed instead that academic economists are engaged in persuasive conversations, using language tools and post-modernist arguments similar to those found in literary works, history, philosophy and other similar disciplines. Almost 20 years later, the Millikin conference would be held to further discuss similar arguments with emphasis being placed on the use of rhetoric in wider economic sectors outside academic circles. Hence, it should not be a surprise that all the conference papers, which together form this book, make reference to some or other arguments made by McCloskey (1985). McCloskey has herself contributed a compelling foreword to the volume, which is fittingly entitled ‘‘How to Buy, Sell, Make, Manage, Produce, Transact, Consume, with Words’’. With contributions originating from various fields beyond economics, one of the book’s aims is to ‘‘evidence a transdisciplinary aspect in the … placement of the C. N. Mbatha (&) Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa e-mail: nhlanhla.mbatha@gmail.com; c.mbatha@ru.ac.za 1 Carter (2008, p. 8) defines rhetoric in terms of two main activities ‘production and analysis’ of text and speech. On the production side, rhetoric relates to the ‘‘crafting of speeches, construction of arguments, making of manuals [for] the persuasion of audiences’’. Analytically, it is the application of critical theories to these texts and speeches, including the analysis of social systems and relations. 123 J Cult Econ (2009) 33:151–155 DOI 10.1007/s10824-008-9090-y