The reading is very academic and informative. It's meant to inform readers of the authors ideas toward rhetoric and the history of rhetoric. The chapter discusses the concept of rhetoric in two ways, one being social practice and the other being rhetorical thinking. This  chapter deals alot with the history of rhectoic and many different historical supporters of the topic. The chapter also set the base for understanding the authors concept of rhetoric and emphasizes the importance of rhetoric in social life. Towards the end of the chapter the author begins to touch base on how rhetoric will change in relations to the audience. This chapter fits with other chapters because it is the base of the infrastructure of rhetoric. Without this chapter many readers will probably be lost when reading further into the text.

The most important idea of the chapter is to understand that rhetoric is more than just academic and it is present in every decision made involving understanding between groups and as an example made in the text between government and the citizens. Through all my experience, I came to understand rhetoric as critical thinking, similar to what the text emphazise. The concept of understnading both side of the arguement and taking into account the pros and cons and the crediblity of the sources. The text was understandable to me because, all my professors discussed the topic in similar if not exactly the same as the text did. While realated rhetoric to craft, its very difficult for me to see a connection beside the example where dance and "art" was discussed,, though it didn't spark any true knowledge about craft.