Z.'s mission, as she outlines it in the introduction, is to analyse the speeches in the last five books of the Histories, showing how Herodotus exploits traditional and contemporary rhetorical models to explore two major themes of his work: Greek disunity and the polarity between Greeks and non-Greeks (especially Persians).

Part 1, ‘The Architectonics of Speech’, comprises Chapter 1, on the ‘Allocation of Speech’. An author has the option of communicating his characters' points of view through direct or indirect speech modes, or through various degrees of silence. As examples from Homer, tragedy, Thucydides and others show, the allocation of direct speech signals power or at least a measure of authority, as unexpected or momentary as that may be (see e.g. the Herodotean Gorgo, or Croesus' dumb son), while indirect speech often serves to draw attention to a direct utterance that precedes or follows. Herodotus uses different devices in the allocation or suppression of speech, making clear what one should consider the correct opinion. Debates among Greeks may feature one speaker to whom the many react in silence, or one speech artificially attributed to several individuals on the same occasion, or the report of only two opposing opinions. Invariably, they underline the disunity in the Greek camp (e.g. the debate before Salamis), and particularly the antagonism between Sparta and Athens (e.g. the embassy to Gelon of Syracuse). Spartan non-speech, or peculiar use of speech, in contrast to Athenian verbosity, defines national character. In the Persian context, power is the exclusive prerogative of the king, although in the case of Xerxes Herodotus suppresses and manipulates speech to signal his emotional instability and essential lack of authority, in contrast to Darius, who is equally ruthless but a skilled orator. Persian debates are less numerous but in their characteristic formality they include more direct speech than Greek debates, which are frequent (again, underlining Greek disunity) and reported in a greater variety of speech modes.

Part 2, ‘Speech and Competition’, again comprises only one chapter (‘Debates’). After a brief survey of previous scholarly work and a definition of ‘debate’ (p. 105), Z. proceeds to examine how specific debates emphasise the fragility of Greek unity and problematise the distinction between Greeks and non-Greeks. Characteristic of Persian debates is that they occur among members of a narrow elite which is in turn dominated by an autocratic regime, yet the fact that they offer the occasion for the expression of opinions gives them a democratic aspect. Greek debates, for their part, are disorderly, unstructured and antagonistic. The power of one speaker often prevails, however, thereby further undermining the Greek–Persian polarity. Although Z. begins by saying that Herodotus' attitude towards debate is ambivalent, her argument (largely following Barker 2009) consistently stresses that both the staging of public speech in the Histories and evaluations in the narrator's voice (e.g. at 5.78) mostly show the defectiveness of debates on both the Greek and the Persian sides. Debates almost always go wrong because of the interference of a single individual, the lack of power of authoritative speakers, narrow interests, antagonism, or deceitfulness (e.g. pp. 105, 112, 122, 129, 135, 150, 166–7).

Part 3, ‘Speech and Typology’, returns to many of the cases already discussed, but from the point of view of the rhetorical conventions that the ancient literary tradition considered appropriate to various genres of epideictic or deliberative oratory. In particular, it examines Herodotus' inclusion of ‘Alliance’ or ‘Pre-battle’ speeches (Chapters 3 and 4).

This book explores the Histories from an exciting new angle. The reader will experience recognition and illumination in many of its pages, as when Z. interestingly discusses Herodotus' choice to report Themistocles' hortatory speech before the Battle of Salamis in compressed and indirect form (pp. 83, 252). On the other hand, the overall argument is too long and repetitious, while leaving many questions unasked and unanswered. We do not need much convincing to agree, for example, that the rhetoric of Aristagoras of Miletus is largely based on self-interest and deception (pp. 183, 187–203). Similarly, it is true that the Greek mission attempting to persuade Gelon of Syracuse to join in the anti-Persian resistance displays Greek disunity and hunger for leadership by all parties (pp. 203–17; cf. 182–3). But in consideration of Herodotus' analeptic portrayal of Gelon (7.153–6), is the text suggesting that the Spartans should have turned over to him the supreme command, or the Athenians the naval command, in exchange for his cooperation? Z. appears to think so, when she maintains that the Ionians' rejection of the leadership of Dionysius of Phocaea parallels the Greeks' rejection of Gelon's leadership (p. 261). What do we make of the fact that, in spite of Gelon's threatening quip about ‘the spring being taken out of the year’ (7.162.1), probably a quotation from Pericles' epitaphios for the dead in the Samian War (Arist. Rh. 1365a30–2, 1411a2–4), the mainland Greeks did just fine without him in their resistance against the Persians? A book devoted to rhetorical exchanges in Herodotus should confront more extensively the political and military realities that lie behind the analyses of such speeches.

In her conclusion Z. introduces the notion of dialogism, in Bakhtin's sense of the word, recognising it as a defining feature of Herodotus' work: multiple ‘voices are in eternal dialogic relationship with each other, and with the reader’. At the same time, she compares the way in which the author meticulously regulates speech by allocation or suppression to the control exercised by tyrants or tyrannical figures in the Histories. This position pushes to unconvincing extremes the insights of those scholars who have compared Herodotus' inquiry to the experimentations of his royal characters (esp. Christ 1994) as well as discussions (esp. by Dewald) about the balance between the authority of the narrator Herodotus and the open-endedness of a work that ‘puts the reader in charge’, as the saying goes. Z.'s main points remain that (1) in Herodotus, speech underlines Greek divisiveness while (2) undermining any clear-cut distinction between Greeks and non-Greeks, and (3) on both the Greek and the Persian side debate is represented as failed enterprise.

In general, Z. underestimates the multiple meanings of the utterances of Herodotean characters as well as Herodotus' own appreciation of the value of exchanging opinions. Unreliable speakers (e.g. Mardonius at 7.9.b, or Themistocles at 8.109.2–3) can nevertheless voice judgements that are true from the point of view of the text as a whole. The Constitutional Debate is not just a hopelessly flawed exercise (pp. 149–50), but a stunning demonstration of the Persians' conflicted attitude towards their monarchy. Sure enough, the ‘tirade’ against tyranny given by the Corinthian Socles dominates the Peloponnesian debate in Book 5; it moreover leads to a decision which, the text suggests, the Corinthians themselves will perhaps live to regret later on (pp. 131–5). But that does not take away from the fact that it persuades the Spartans to follow the right course of action at the time, and it does so through storytelling about the past, rather as Herodotus himself attempts to do on a larger scale. The miniature narrative of the Athenian assembly about the oracle of the Wooden Wall inflates the role of the individual Themistocles (p. 108), but is also paradigmatic of the possible successful balance between collective choice and creative leadership. Finally, among many other possible examples, in the series of speeches at 8.135–9.11 (discussed on pp. 217–33), we have been aware of an ironical aspect in the Athenians' declared commitment to Panhellenism at least since Fornara (1971). That does not mean, however, that all arguments by Athenians and Spartans are merely rhetorical or hypocritical. One of Herodotus' merits, in fact, is that he dramatises the conflict within and among Greek city-states between idealism on the one hand, and competition, polis-interest and pragmatism on the other.

If, as Z. suggests, all speech in Herodotus is deceptive and reported only for the purpose of showing its flaws, what means are left for achieving correct political action? And what use do we have for Herodotus' own logos and logoi? This book will no doubt stimulate further study of these issues.