The Practice of Persuasion : Cornell University Press : 9780801486753 : 0801486750 : 14 Dec 2000 : This sequel to The Practice of Theory stresses the continued need for self-reflective awareness in art historical writing. Offering a series of meditations on the discipline of art history in the context of contemporary critical theory, Moxey addresses such central issues as the status of the canon, the nature of aesthetic value, and the character of historical knowledge. The chapters are linked by a common interest in, even fascination with, the paradoxical power of narrative and the identity of the authorial voice. Moxey maintains that art history is a rhetoric of persuasion rather than a discourse of truth. Each chapter in The Practice of Persuasion attempts to demonstrate the paradoxes inherent in a genre that?while committed to representing the past?must inevitably bear the imprint of the present. In Moxey's view, art history as a discipline is often unable to recognize its status a