Great Speeches Of The 20th Century

Product Description

What has happened to the 'art' of speech-writing & speech making? Where are the men & women whose words set the heart racing with passion, turn battles, inspire populations to extraordinary endeavour: ' Ask not what your country can do for you.' ' We shall fight on the beaches.' 'I have a dream.' ' The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'

"e these words today & they still have the power to stop us in our tracks.

This is a book that should be required reading, a book that should be on every bookshelf in the country.

Here are fourteen key speeches of the 20th century introduced by prominent figures ranging from F.W. de Klerk & Mikhail Gorbachev to Antony Beevor & Gordon Brown.

Winston Churchill: We shall fight on the beaches. Introduced by Simon Schama
J.F. Kennedy: Ask not what your country can do for you. Introduced by Kennedy's speech writer Ted Sorensen
Nelson Mandela: An ideal for which I am prepared to die. Introduced by F.W. de Klerk
Harold Macmillan: No going back. Introduced by Douglas Hurd
Franklin D. Roosevelt: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Introduced by Gordon Brown
Nikita Khrushchev: The cult of the individual. Introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev
Emmeline Pankhurst: Freedom or death. Introduced by Germaine Greer
Martin Luther King: I have a dream. Introduced by Gary Younge
Charles de Gaulle: The flame of French resistance. Introduced by Antony Beevor
Margaret Thatcher: The lady's not for turning. Introduced by Simon Jenkins
Jawaharlal Nehru: A tryst with destiny. Introduced by Ian Jack
Aneurin Bevan: Weapons for squalid & trivial ends. Introduced by Tam Dalyell
Earl Spencer: The most hunted person of the modern age. Introduced by Beryl Bainbridge
Virginia Woolf: Shakespeare's sister. Introduced by Kate Mosse