ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book investigates the tensions that surround the place of persuasion in marketing. It concerns the consequences of millennia of public and scholarly unease with marketing and rhetoric, with attempts to control others for commercial, political, or personal gain. The book examines the foundation myths of marketing, looking at where scholars think the discipline comes from and how it has been thought to have developed in its formative years. It explores the ramifications of understanding marketing as an attempt to control the flow of value. The book reviews the Western scholarly engagement with magic, the way that it has been defined around attempts at control, and the importance of language in the understandings of what it is. It details consideration of how the Sophistic approach to language was one based upon a consideration of the magical power of speech.
