This list is not exhaustive by any means, but we feel these are the best texts on rhetoric for those who want to enhance their understanding of and propensity for mutual persuasion.
Ancient Rhetoric
Anonymous, Rhetorica Ad Herennium
Aristotle, On Rhetoric
Buddha, The Lotus Sutra, (Chapters 2, 3, and 7)
Isocrates, Against the Sophists
Longinus, On the Sublime
Plato, Phaedrus
Pre-Modern Rhetoric
Augustine, City of God
Bacon, Francis, The Advancement of Learning
Modern Rhetoric
Locke, John, Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Nietzsche, Friedrich, “On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense”
Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Gay Science
Peirce, Charles, “How to Make Our Ideas Clear“
Contemporary Rhetoric
Anzaldua, Gloria, Borderlands/La Frontera
Molefi Kente Asante, The Afrocentric Ideal
Baldwin, James, “If Black English Isn’t English, Then Tell Me, What Is?“
Berlin, James, Rhetoric, Poetics, and Culture
Burke, Kenneth, Language as Symbolic Action
Burke, Kenneth, Grammar of Motives
Burke, Kenneth, Rhetoric of Motives
Booth, Wayne, The Rhetoric of Rhetoric
Orwell, George, “Politics and the English Language“
Ramage, John D. Rhetoric: A User’s guide.
Fahnestock, Jeanne, and Marie Secor. “The stases in scientific and literary argument.”