Speeches That Changed the World: The Stories and Transcripts of the Moments That Made History

Over 50 momentous and thought-provoking speeches from a wide range of historical eras and nations. Complete with biographies of each speaker, the history of why each speech was significant and what... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1905204027
• ISBN13: 9781905204021
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Smith-Davies Pub
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 2.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.5" x 1.0" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Speeches That Changed the World: The Stories and Transcripts of the Moments That Made History

The book is in great condition; it appears as if it's never even been opened and read. Thanks!

Above average collection of speeches

All in all if you are looking for a book of speeches, not necessarily in their entirety or with a great deal of background, then this is a good book. While I would not say that all of these are the "greatest" speeches, there is a good collection of speeches that impacted societies all across the world.

Important speeches, some great

This book contains 48 speeches, or excerpts from speeches (mostly the latter). It starts with Moses (with the ten commandments, which is not actually a speech) and ends with George W. Bush. Each of the 48 sections contains a picture of the speaker (or representation for those for whom no likeness is known), a brief biography of the speaker and the context of the speech. Unfortunately, in most cases the complete speech is not provided, only excerpts are presented. The choice of the speeches appears to be their historical importance, not their quality. As such, many are interesting, but far from memorable. Some are, however, powerful, very moving and worth the price of the book. I place the examples of the speeches given by FDR, Churchill, JFK, Martin Luther King and Elie Wiesel to be is this latter category. In this regard, the "I have a Dream" speech given by Martin Luther King stands far above all the others, even when the others include the likes of Churchill and John F. Kennedy. I only have two complaints (in addition to the fact that only excerpts are given from most of the speeches). Except for the last speech (that given by George W. Bush after 9/11) the author (when it was not the speaker) is not given. The second criticism stems from the fact that the book was prepared in Great Britain and there is a certain lack of knowledge of US history. The president to succeed Woodrow Wilson was Warren Harding, not Warren Hardy. All in all, this is mostly a history book, rather than one on rhetoric.