Book excerpt: This volume is the first to illustrate the application of rhetorical theory and critical perspectives to explain public relations practices. It provides a systematic and coherent statement of the critical guidelines and philosophical underpinnings of public relations and as such should guide pedagogy and practice. It also supplies pedagogic and critical standards with which to meet the needs of an increasingly sophisticated society that tends to reject all of public relations as propaganda. With the enormous amount of money spent on product publicity and public policy debates, this book gives practitioners a sense of whether their public relations campaigns make a contribution to the organizational bottom line by means of achieving the timeless standards of the art of rhetoric.