Customer Reviews

The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Great speeches - and great books - can move mountains. This book has mountains of speeches and are all the great ones are there from Moses to Mandela. But something is missing. Despite the content matter, MacArthur's editorial contribution is too flat, too dry, too short. Compare his prose with that of Safire's in the latter's "Lend Me Your Ears". Safire sets fire to our senses, MacArthur fails to stoke the embers. If you only want to read the speeches than this book is fine. But this is not the book if you are looking for an editor who can take the raw material and then explain, instruct, inspire. A useful read but there are better.

Aren't the speeches in and of themselves, enough to inspire? Why would we need someone else's exhortation about the speeches themselves. They are their own best witnesses of the greatness of each of them. Whether we have a great commentary on them or a horrible one, or none at all, makes no difference to me personally. If I watch a film of a presidential speech, I usually do not stay tuned to have a news commentator tell me what I just heard :) So, these speeches are great in and of themselves, and need no commentary at all, whether good, bad or indifferent.
Do we watch a baseball game in its entirety and then immediately switch to a sports channel to find out from THEM how the game went???? We just saw the game!