Building on recent work in rhetoric and composition that takes an historical materialist approach Dangerous Writing outlines a political economic theory of composition. The book connects pedagogical practices in writing classes to their broader political economic contexts and argues that the analytical power of students writing is prevented from reaching its potential by pressures within the academy and without that tend to wed higher education with the aims and logics of ampampquotfastcapitalism.ampampquot Since the 1980s and the ampampquotsocial turnampampquot in composition studies and other disciplines scholars in this field have conceived writing in college as explicitly embedded in sociorhetorical situations beyond the classroom. From this conviction develops a commitment to teach writing with an emphasis on analyzing the social and political dimensions of rhetoric.