Speeches That Made History

by Various

For many thousands of years, people have used oratory to influence others, but what exactly makes a good speech? Is it the choice of words, the feelings they express or the lasting effect that the speech has had on the course of history?

Covering broad topics and themes such as ancient history, love, religion, science and philosophy, these speeches have all inspired people to act. Some have changed the way people think, others have changed the course of events across the globe - sometimes for the better, at other times with devastating results. All have chronicled our history...

191 pages, Leather Bound

Published January 1, 2018

About the author

Various is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).

If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.

Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.

Reviews

[Robert Day · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of this book is given over, not to speeches, but to one-liners. That's really why it lost so many stars with me. If it has stuck to the remit in the title, even if it meant there being fewer subjects and articles, it would have been a great book. As it is, it's three-quarter quote and one-quarter speech.

When it gets down to it's core buisiness, though, it's a fascinating repository of famous, historical (and ground-breaking) matter that I would not otherwise have made the effort to dig out. The best sections for me were those on war (which would have been better titled 'peace') and politics. This is strange because I would normaly avoid these subjects like corvid-19. What made them good is that they included all the famous stuff, like the declaration of independence and … erm … other stuff that's famous. It even included a speech by Hitler, which was weird, but strangely compelling. He would have been a fine statesman if he hadn't held such twisted views on … well, everything really.

So, yeah, an interesting book that could have been better, but which certainly broadened my horizons. Read it if you want the same for yourself.

[Andrea Engle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grand collection of the texts of famous speeches throughout history ... from Egypt’s Pharoah Merneptah, long before the Israelite slaves conquered Canaan, to Barack Obama’s First Inaugural Address in 2009 ... each entry contains a brief introduction identifying the speaker and the occasion for the text of the speech ... most enlightening, a great way to learn history, as first envisioned in

by Henry Steele Commager (no photo)

[Jeremy Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not recommended. There are some good speeches in here, but much of it is not actually speeches. The book confuses "speech" with "quote" or even "written document".

One of the speeches is literally: "History repeats itself."

I mean, that's just a quote. A pretty common one, too. There are also things like documents from the UN in there, which I'm sure were read aloud at some point into the public record, but don't really qualify as a speech.

I do appreciate that a bit of context is given for each item. But on the whole this is disappointing, and much of it is boring.

[Simone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too bad...I use it for my writing.

[Alba B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting selection of random speeches and quotes. Most of them give you food for thought