“The manifesto and the jeremiad are emotion-driven genres that get much of their power and sweep from rhetorical pyrotechnics. Built on overstatement, oversimplification and a blithe refusal to acknowledge that there are always alternative points of view, neither the manifesto nor the jeremiad has room for ambiguity. One-sidedness is their nature: Marx's manifesto would not have been a manifesto if he had given capitalism its due; the Puritan ministers could not have put the fear of God in their congregations if they confessed to doubt, or admitted that there was more than one way to read the Bible. On the basis of this one-sidedness, manifestos and jeremiads predict the future. Amid scathing indictments of our moral slackness and gloomy forecasts of our impending doom, they show us how, if only we change our ways--if we overthrow capitalism, say, or devote ourselves to God, or wrest control of the Internet away from the powers that be--we will not only avert disaster but will create an ideal world, a communist utopia for example, or an eternal paradise, or a thriving, truly democratic culture.”

(Excerpt from a book review at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/)