Kenneth Burke: Rhetoric and Ideology is a lucid and accessible introduction to a major twentieth-century thinker those ideas have influenced fields as diverse as literary theory, philosophy, linguistics, politics and anthropology. Stephen Bygrave explores the content of Burke's vast output of work, focusing especially on his preoccupation with the relation between language, ideology and action.

By considering Burke as a reader and writer of narratives and systems, Bygrave examines the inadequacies of earlier readings of Burke and unfolds his thought within current debates in Anglo-American cultural theory. This is an excellent re-evaluation of Burke's thought and valuble introduction to the impressive range of his ideas.