History's Great Speeches

Embark on a journey through 2,400 years of history with this definitive collection of 161 of the world’s greatest speeches. Presented chronologically, this master volume spans from the golden age of Athens in 431BCE to the dawn of a new China in 1926, now complete with seminal speeches from India’s Mohandas Gandhi and China’s Mao Tse-Tung.
The collection begins with Demosthenes, whose rhetorical mastery forms the DNA of modern expression. Witness the high point of the Athenian empire with Pericles’ funeral oration and hear the only known speech of Julius Caesar before the Roman senate. Delve into the Roman Civil War, dominated by the rivalry between the revolutionary Cataline and the great statesman Cicero, and feel the power of Mark Antony’s oration over Caesar’s body.
After a millennium where rhetoric waned, the art is reborn with Mirandola’s "Oration on the Dignity of Man," firing the starting pistol for the Renaissance. The Reformation erupts with Martin Luther’s barnstorming 95 Theses, while the Enlightenment gives way to political upheaval. Hear Maximillien Robespierre’s chilling justifications for terror, Patrick Henry’s cry for liberty, and Napoleon Bonaparte’s revolutionary addresses.
Explore the great debates of the 19th century: the struggle against slavery, the rise of anarchism with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Otto von Bismarck’s “Blood and Iron” forging a new nation, and Abraham Lincoln’s immortal words. Witness the birth of socialism, the powerful anti-war arguments of Eugene Debs, and Swami Vivekananda’s address bridging East and West.
This complete volume concludes with visionary speakers from Mexico, the Philippines, India, and China, whose words shaped the modern world and continue to resonate into the twenty-first century.