If you did read Orwell's essay on "Politics and the English Language" cited above (and if you didn't, shame on you!) then you may have caught Orwell's passing reference to "Stuart Chase" at the end of that treatise. And, if you're like me, you may have glossed over that reference a dozen times before bothering to look it up. And again, if you're like me, you would have been delighted to discover at the other end of that rabbit hole Chase's tome on how language is used to deceive us. If you're interested in the nexus of language and political philosophy, then this is the book for you. And if you're still interested, then go back and listen (or re-listen) to the Corbett Report podcast that this book inspired (Episode 357 – Language is a Weapon) after you're done reading. ~ James Corbett
In 1938, Stuart Chase revolutionized the study of semantics with his classic text, The Tyranny of Words. Decades later, this eminently useful analysis of the way we use words continues to resonate. A contemporary of the economist Thorstein Veblen and the author Upton Sinclair, Chase was a social theorist and writer who despised the imprecision of contemporary communication. Wide-ranging and erudite, this iconic volume was one of the first to condemn the overuse of abstract words and to exhort language users to employ words that make their ideas accurate, complete, and readily understood.
