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A Great Resource!

Customer Rating:
I don't know of anyone who expects communication to be Unbiased; we each come to the table with our own opinions & perspectives. That said, the speeches in this book are a great resource for having a thumb on the pulse of modern life, and the events that bring us to today.
Valuable for a writing resource, preparation to write remarks, and for a leisurly read (this from an admitted history buff).

Great Reference of Speeches

Customer Rating:
Look - this compilation of speeches is well worth checking out. You can find the history of the 20th century wrapped up in the writings. From Roosevelt to Clinton there is much to be digested in this work. Any student of politics or history will be well served to read through this book and refer to it going forward. It is interesting to see how the language of speeches changes in the present, and how it recalls much of the past.

Classic speeches from JFK, Reagan, MLK, Clinton, etc will keep you interested, and some other speeches will put you to sleep. The point is - you will know more about our world, and the USA if you check out this book.

Joseph Dworak

A Century of Outstanding Spoken Wisdom

Customer Rating:
In Our Own Words is a treasure of the greatest American speeches of the twentieth century. The greatest minds and their messages have been chronologically compiled bringing us all the wisdom their spoken words have served to alter the course of humanity.
If you are looking for a book that is engaging, illuminating, and packed with profound wisdom from some of the greatest minds that have made history, this is one book that you will be glad you bought.

Highly recommended! Barbara Rose, author of "Stop Being the String Along: A Relationship Guide to Being THE ONE" and 'If God Was Like Man'
Editor of inspire! magazine

A good compilation, if you ignore the italics.

Customer Rating:
I bought this book because of an interest in analyzing the form and structure of oratory speech, and on that level, the book delivers rather well. However, the editorial comment that is supposed to provide the "objective" context in which these speeches were delivered, deteriorates rather badly as the last decade of the century is covered.

For example, in the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill controversy, an speech is excerpted from both parties. There's nothing wrong with that, but in the author's/editor's commentary to set up the speech, Hill's speech is given the description "equally as compelling". Which again, I say is fine, if they wanted to go that route to highlight both sides with similar force.

But then cut to a later pair of passages, first with Sarah Brady (emphasized as "Registered Republican") speaking at the 1996 Democratic National Convention about handgun control, and then excerpting a speech from Charlton Heston on behalf of the NRA ("Although many Americans consider the organization's positions extreme" -- p. 427) opposing the measure.

I'm not familiar with the immediate politics of the earlier periods to say what kind of bias, if any, is reflected by the editorial comments in this account of history, but there's a level of trust between author/editor and reader that, if breached, can justify the reader in dismissing wholesale the commentary for lack of integrity rather than an innocent bias. Perhaps if this book had been completed a year or two later than it was (1999), the perspective of recent history may have been a little different.

But for the speeches themselves, I can't complain. It's a decent resource not only for its substance, but also for a guide to drafting good oratory.

A lot of good speeches.... a LOT of bias

Customer Rating:
Torricelli's compilation of what he considers to be the greatest speeches of the twentieth century is an impressive collection of famous oratory. No doubt, some of the speeches he chose to include rank as some of the finest and most influential in world history.

That having been said, I get the impression that Torricelli sat down with a textbook of 20th century American history (surely a "revisionist" one at that), picking and choosing speeches that reflected the liberal/progressive/feminist/environmentalist side of pretty much every argument that arose.

If a reader were to base his understanding of the American century solely on Torricelli's choice of important events and speeches, one would think the liberal viewpoint dominated this period, with conservatives providing knee-jerk, reactionary rants to an agenda framed and implemented by the Left with some exceptions. In reality, particularly during the latter half of this century, nothing could be further from the truth.

What particularly disappointed me was the editors' need to give commentary before and after many of the speeches, as if this book would be someone's first jaunt into American history. These editorials, which further display the editors' blatant political bias, add nothing to the book at all - in fact they take away from it.