Lend me your ears : great speeches in history selected and introduced by William Safire.

"Updated and expanded."

Includes index.

"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 also the most elegant explicator of our language." "Covering speeches from Demosthenes to John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, Lend Me Your Ears has an extraordinary range, which includes Queen Elizabeth I, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Dalai Lama, Karl Marx, Thomas Jefferson, and Alistair Cooke. Arranged by theme and occasion, it covers inspirational speeches, trials, tributes and eulogies, sermons, political speeches, and much more. Safire expertly introduces each speech, placing it in its historical context, examining its rhetoric, and, in many instances, giving personal anecdotes on the speaker or the speech." "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."--BOOK JACKET.