This book is written for upper-level undergraduate students who have completed at least one course in logic, critical thinking or argumentation. Although the title suggests that the book provides a comprehensive theory, Vorobej deals primarily with the notion of argument, with the cogency of arguments and with how to develop a charitable reading of an argument and display it in a diagram. The book is not about argument schemes, argumentation indicators, dialogue, rhetoric or logical form. Nor is the book about argument evaluation. Norms are being discussed, but from the perspective of reconstructing arguments from a text. Part one of the book is called macrostructure and deals with arguments in canonical form (where they have a conclusion and a set of premises), with the cogency of arguments and with the analysis of so-called normal arguments. Part two is about the microstructure of arguments, i.e. with the more detailed patterns of evidential support. The book contains four hundred exercises with which students can examine the notions and definitions that the book introduces. Still, the book is not merely a textbook, but can also be considered as a scholarly contribution to the study of argumentation.

During the last decade we have been working, together with colleagues interested in this endeavor, on an extension of the ''standard'' pragmadialectical theory of argumentation developed by van Eemeren and Grootendorst by integrating insights from classical and modern rhetoric.This integration of rhetorical insight in a dialectical theoretical framework was motivated by our wish to improve the quality of a pragma-dialectical analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse.The integration was brought about with the help of the introduction of the notion of ''strategic maneuvering,'' which designates the balancing act of reconciling the simultaneous pursuit of dialectical and rhetorical objectives that arguers have to perform in the conduct of argumentative discourse.Even if they are in the first place out to fulfill their dialectical obligations in the explicit or implicit exchange, they may still be expected to be aiming at realizing the rhetorical aspirations that go with entering an argument; and if they are in the first place led by their rhetorical aspirations, they still cannot ignore the dialectical obligations that they have to meet when entering an argument.These considerations concerning the ''double'' concern that arguers may be assumed to have are at the heart of our efforts to develop an extended pragma-dialectical theory.They are also the starting point for this special issue of the journal Argumentation in which authors from various theoretical backgrounds -which may be quite different from our pragma-dialectical position -offer, from their specific vantage points, their ''Perspectives on Strategic Maneuvering.''The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, NWO, granted us a substantial subsidy to further develop our ideas concerning strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse, in particular by examining the strategic function of maneuvering that consists in pointing out an inconsistency in the other partyÕs position and formulating the soundness conditions applying to that way of maneuvering (research program no. 360-80-030).Apart from involving four excellent PhD students and a post-doctoral researcher in the project, this subsidy allowed us also, just as we intended, to organize a series of small-scale and clearly focused conferences dedicated to specific aspects of strategic maneuvering.At these conferences scholars of argumentation interested in any of these specific aspects could discuss their views with other interested parties and contribute in this way to the progress of our project, not in the last place by criticizing some of our points of departure and offering constructive alternatives.The first