Description

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The definitive compendium of classic and modern oratory expanded—with a new preface on what makes a speech "great."

An instant classic when it was first published a decade ago and now enriched by seventeen new speeches, Lend Me Your Ears contains more than two hundred outstanding moments of oratory. It is selected, arranged, and introduced by William Safire, who honed his skills as a presidential speechwriter. He is considered by many to be America's most influential political columnist and most elegant explicator of our language. Covering speeches from Demosthenes to George W. Bush, this latest edition includes the words of Cromwell to the "Rump Parliament," Orson Welles eulogizing Darryl F. Zanuck, General George Patton exhorting his troops before D-Day, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaking on Bush v. Gore. A new section incorporates speeches that were never delivered: what Kennedy was scheduled to say in Dallas; what Safire wrote for Nixon if the first moon landing met with disaster; and what Clinton originally planned to say after his grand jury testimony but swapped for a much fiercer speech.

About the Author

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William Safire (1929—2009), a Pulitzer Prize-winner, was the long-time author of the "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine.

Praise For…

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Bill Safire's collection of galvanizing speeches ancient and modern is wonderfully done, the taste in the selection eclectic, discriminating, piquant, and enchantingly introduced. Makes for wonderful reading.
— William F. Buckley, Jr.

This is the most valuable kind of book, the kind that benefits mind and heart.... My fellow Americans, Safire is a gem.
— Peggy Noonan

To teach and to please, some Greek once advised, is the function of great rhetoric, and Safire has put together [a] volume that embod[ies] those functions and their power.
— Booklist