History's Great Speeches: The Definitive Collection: 40 hours of historical highlights from Pericles to Mao covering 54 orators, and 153 speeches
"This complete edition spans 2,400 years (431 BCE–1944) in 40 hours, 155 speeches, and 52 speakers, including foundational addresses by Gandhi and Mao—voices that shaped modern Asia.
Begin in 431 BCE with Demosthenes, whose structural genius remains the DNA of modern expression. Traverse Athens’ zenith via Pericles’ Funeral Oration, Alexander’s volatile proclamations, and Rome’s crisis in Cicero’s showdown with Cataline—featuring Caesar’s sole surviving senate address and Mark Antony’s incendiary eulogy.
Witness rhetoric’s rebirth after a millennium: from Prophet Mohammed’s Farewell and Pope Urban II’s Crusade call, to Pico della Mirandola’s Renaissance-sparking Oration and Milton’s defiant Satan.
The collection illuminates seismic shifts: Luther's 95 Theses and Calvin's Treatise on Relics defining the Reformation; the Enlightenment and Revolutionary fervor articulated by Pitt, Burke, and Robespierre's chilling discourses on Terror; the birth of American liberty through Patrick Henry and Washington; and the tumultuous End of Empire featuring Napoleon's legendary addresses, Daniel O'Connell, and Frederick Douglass' searing indictments of slavery.
Delve into challenges to order with anarchists Proudhon and Bakunin. Witness the forging of modern polities through Bismarck's 'Blood and Iron', Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Susan B. Anthony's suffrage plea, and Swami Vivekananda's groundbreaking Parliament address. Chart the Rise of Socialism with William Morris, Annie Besant, and Eugene Debs' heroic workers pleas from prison.
We finish with transformative modern voices: Gandhi 's South African struggle and early activism and Mao Tse-Tung's defining wartime addresses Gandhi’s early and Mao’s revolutionary manifestos."
AM Sullivan, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Apponyi, Alexander the Great, Annie Besant, Caius Memmius, Caius Marius, Catiline, Cato The Younger, Charles Phillips, Chief Joseph, Daniel O'Connell, Demosthenes, Dinarchus, Edmund Burke, Eduard Bernstein, Edward Carpenter, Elizabeth I, Emilio Castelar, Eugene Debs, Frederick Douglass, Gaetano, George Graham Vest, Girolamo Savonarola, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, Julius Caesar, Louis Kossuth, Louis Lingg, Mao Tse-Tung, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Mark Anthony, Mark Twain, Martin Luther, Maximillian Robespierre, Mikhail Bakunin, Mohandas Gandhi, Muhammad, Napoleon Bonaparte, Otto von Bismarck, Pericles, Peter Kropotkin, Phillip Melanchthon, Pico della Mirandola, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Pope Urban II, Red Jacket, Robert Emmet, Susan B Anthony, Swami Vivekananda, William Lloyd Garrison, William Morris, William Pitt (Author), Charles Featherstone (Narrator)
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