Abstract

Argument Ation And Advoc Acy 2022, voL. 58, no . 2, 126–128 Book Review Debate as global pedagogy: Rwanda rising, by Lanham Ben voth, Maryland, Lexington Books, 2021, pp. 253, $110.00 (hardcover), iSBN: 978-1793629371 How can debate be used as a tool to recover from genocide? Ben Voth’s Debate as Global Pedagogy: Rwanda Rising examines the use of debate as a critical practice to understand past atrocities and to prevent them from occurring again in the future. Through case studies and theoretical work, Voth argues that debate is foundational to both individual expression and a societal embrace of critical thinking which rejects propaganda that leads to genocide. These advantages occur because citizens trained in debate are better able to cut through the rhetoric of propaganda, and they are less likely to be silent bystanders when encountering atrocities. As Voth argues, “teaching debate is among the most useful forms of academic instruction any society can endeavor to do for a next generation to improve all social outcomes” (p. 207). The book centers on debate training in Rwanda, a case study which is used to understand both a specific instance of pedagogy and as an instructional guide for how debate can