Great Speeches in Minutes

by Jacob F. Field

200 historic speeches and the stories behind them
"I have a dream", "Government of the people, by the people, for the people", "This was their finest hour", "Tear down this wall", "Give me liberty, or give me death", "Free at last!". They are the great words of history, inspiring war and peace, outrage and justice, rebellion and freedom.

Great Speeches in Minutes presents the key extracts of 200 of the orations that changed the world, from antiquity to the modern day. Each is accompanied by an explanation of the historic context of the speech and its momentous consequences.

Includes the speeches Buddha, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Cicero, Julius Caesar, Jesus, Augustine of Hippo, Muhammad, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther, Elizabeth I, Oliver Cromwell, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon Bonaparte, Simon Bolivar, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abraham Lincoln, Emmeline Pankhurst, Patrick Pearse, Vladimir Lenin, David Lloyd George, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Franklin D Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Lyndon B Johnson, Muhammad Ali, Mother Teresa, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, The Dalai Lama, Václav Havel, Pope John Paul II, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and many more.

416 pages, Paperback

Published November 26, 2019

About the author

Jacob F. Field is a historian and writer. He grew up in South London, completed his undergraduate degree in History at the University of Oxford, and then moved to Newcastle University for his PhD. He completed his doctoral thesis on the Great Fire of London in 2008, and has worked as a research associate at the University of Cambridge since then. Jacob has contributed to books including 1001 Historical Sites and 1001 Battles That Changed The Course Of History and published articles in journals including Economic History Review, London Journal and Urban History.

Reviews

[Deepak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some people are repeated a lot. But good overview of speeches.

[Dan Slone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read one speech each morning for inspiration. Not all of these are from good people, but all inspire you to believe that an idea and a determined individual can change the world.

[David Campton · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has all the appearances of a disposable stocking filler book but there are excerpts from 200 speeches here, introducing me to some significant people and events that I wasn't aware of. Not all of the speeches are admirable, but oratory can be used for I'll as well as good, it is perhaps weighted too heavily to the post 1900 period, but that's probably a function of perspective and access, and you do wonder whether some speeches will stand the test of time, especially the last two - Trump's inauguration, which is frighteningly banal and nationalistic, or even more so despite being more laudable and better crafted, Jacinta Ardern's speech after the Christchurch mosque attacks.