American Rhetoric has listed the top 100 speeches of all time. The text is available for all speeches. But what’s particularly amazing is that audio exists for a substantial chunk of these. The obvious ones are here. But the site is a fantastic trip down memory lane. This speech takes me back to fifth grade sitting at a desk with other stunned kids watching the television, while this speech, which I was not alive to hear, continues to amuse me with its hypocrisies.
The Great Speeches
– May 25, 2005Posted in: Uncategorized
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell: This marvelous collection of essays chronicles everything from film shoots to novelists rescued from oblivion. (The essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, with its portrait of raucous factions, unexpectedly reveals how soft today's literary world has become.) But if you peer between the cracks of these smart pieces, you may very well see how cultural lives are formed from the most unexpected life choices. And as we follow Bissell's development as a writer over the years, that goes for Bissell as well. (
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway: Harkaway's latest novel greatly improves on his previous book, The Gone-Away World, which I'm already on record as praising. Angelmaker adopts genre elements without ever feeling like a genre book, and it leads me to believe that Harkaway is well on his way to a narrative grace close to China Miéville's. Yet inexplicably this very fun book, which includes an eightysomething badass named Edie Banister, a mysterious mechanical object that may destroy the world, farcical scenarios involving lawyers and the police, and some unexpectedly moving moments about fatherhood, doesn't appear to be getting much attention in American newspapers. Nothing from the snobs at The New York Times Book Review, nothing from The Washington Post. And since I can't get Harkaway on Bat Segundo, I hope this Jump Up and Down mention gets you hopping as well.
The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel: Unless you're really pressed for time, forget Jonah Lehrer. If you want to understand creativity and its relationship to neuroscience, then the bowtie-wearing Nobel laureate is your man. In addition to being a physically beautiful book (you will drool over many of the paintings), there are helpful overviews on optical illusions, science, biographical backgrounds, and many vital figures from the Vienna Secession. Kandel's enthusiasm (and his call for greater unity between the humanities and science) is contagious.
What I’d like to see is a tournament of the greatest sports-related orations:
First round: Ricky Henderson’s “Today I am the greatest of all time” vs. Jimmy V’s “Never Give Up” speech.
Crickey, Ed. You’re just a kid. You had me fooled. Good link, thanks.
Well, it’s an ok list for the 20th century. But, it definitely doesn’t represent US history very well. In the 19th century, oratory was America’s pastime.
To take the most obvious example, haven’t they ever heard of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address? Or the 2nd inaugural? Not to mention Webster, Douglass, Clay, Emerson, Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech…and that’s even notwithstanding the Founding Fathers.
Ok, I retract my snarkiness — the intro page calls this “the 100 most significant American political speeches of the 20th century.” That’s a different criteria.