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 | | Words That Shook the World: 100 Years of Unforgettable Speeches and Events by Richard Greene, Florie Brizel ISBN-10: 0735202966 ISBN-10: 0-7352-0296-6 ISBN-13: 9780735202962 ISBN-13: 978-0-7352-0296-2 Hardcover 2001-12-15 Prentice Hall Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description Words that Shook the World celebrates over 40 of the most extraordinary speeches of the last 100 years. Illustrated with dramatic black-and-white photographs, the book sets each of the speeches and speakers within a historical context that includes timelines and contemporary press commentary. In addition, readers are brought inside every paragraph of 20 of these magical speeches to discover what has made these words so powerful. And, best of all, two audio CDs reveal the passion of many of these extraordinary individuals as they faced their audiences, opened their hearts, and spoke Words that Shook the World. | ||
Reviews | ||
Total Inspiration! Oh my goodness. What an inspiration! With all of the negative things in politics and the news today what a wonderful refuge and inspiration to read about and read the words of these amazing men and women, and to hear them in their own voices. I never knew about Teddy Roosevelt's environmental speech way back in 1903, loved reading the entire "luckiest man" speech by Lou Gehrig, the entire "only thing to fear is fear itself" speech by FDR and the magical words of Einstein. Who knew that he could write and speak that brilliantly. But my favorites were Barbara Jordan, who sent chills down my spine with her amazing voice and, of course, reading the entire "I Have A Dream" speech with Mr. Greene's analysis of every paragraph. I knew it was great but, with this insight into WHY it was great it has become even more amazing to me. If only leaders spoke today, and lead today, like the leaders in this book!! | ||
Words that shook my pocketbook What a joke. I could have put together those speeches by going on-line but purchased the book since it had a CD of the speeches. The historical notes are very helpful but not as complete as would be expected. Also, in so far as the CD , it does not say they are excerpts on the cover of my book. Not anywhere! I sat down with my kids on Martin Luther King's birthday to listen to his "I have a dream" speech only to find that the CD contains less than 1 minute, barely 35 or so seconds of Dr. King's voice. What a disappointment it was. I had put so much emphasis on that day, history lesson and all and the final climax was to be an after-dinner family event to listen to Dr. King's unforgettable speech in his own voice. The same holds true about all the other speeches, they are excerpts. You would think that for the cost all the speeches would be complete. The cost cannot be much more, you already have had to have permission to do the excerpt. Like I said, you can listen to all of these on-line, complete. How very sad that the author believes we would rather listen to his voice introducing these great icons of our past rather than the actual historical figure's voice. | ||
Step back into history Richard Greene does an excellent job presenting the historical context of these important 20th century speeches and then provides a blow-by-blow analysis of what makes them great. For those of us who were not born yet or were too young to appreciate Churchill, FDR, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein and other great people of the 20th century this book is a wonderful way to go back in time and experience history. The book contains the full text of over 40 speeches and short excerpts from twenty of them on the two accompanying CDs. My only complaint is that the excerpts on the CD are too short. For example, the excerpt from Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech is only 39 seconds long. This is probably the best speech of the 20th century -- I would like to hear the whole thing. If the cost of producing the CDs is the reason for the short excerpts I would much rather hear the original speeches than the introductions by the book's author. I have no issues with the selection of the speeches. Yes, they are biased towards Americans, and some are perhaps there are better choices for a few of them, but with over 40 speeches included it is not a great loss to skip a few. Most of them are unequivocally great speeches and this book does a great job presenting them. | ||
Poor selection I wouldn't touch a book that lists a speech delivered as an eulogy for Princess Diana as a something that 'shook the world'. It also suffers from the sin common to most Americans- being blind to most things that happen outside America. The author has no clue on what happened elsewhere in the world- for instance misses out on the powerful oratory of Nehru and Gandhi that to no small extent was reponsible for the British Empire to come crumbling down. Instead we have a roster of American presidents starting with Teddy Roosevelt and ending with Dubya.. Perhaps 'Words that shook America' or even 'Words that shook me' would have been a more accurate title. | ||
Ever give a speech? You need this book. I've been a speech coach, writer and teacher for 18 years, and there are many times in the past when I've wished I've had something like this book -- to use with clients, to quote from, to inspire students. All the greatest speeches of the last century are here, and they deserve study. To have many of them on a cd just adds to the usefulness of the book. You can hear the magnificent cadences of speakers like Kennedy and King, Jr and learn how it's done. For all those who give presentations or speeches -- or for anyone who cares about great rhetoric and moments when the world was changed by the collision of words and passion -- this book is a must-have. | ||