A historian and former presidential speechwriter presents an unprecedented two-volume collection of the greatest speeches in American history.

'Two things alone I long for: first, that when I die I may leave the Roman people free...and second, that each person's fate may reflect the way he has behaved towards his country.' Cicero (106-43 BC) was the greatest orator of the ancient world and a leading politician of the closing era of the Roman republic. This book presents nine speeches which reflect the development, variety, and drama of his political career,among them two speeches from his prosecution of Verres, a corrupt and cruel governor of Sicily; four speeches against the conspirator Catiline; and the Second Philippic, the famous denunciation of Mark Antony which cost Cicero his life. Also included are On the Command of Gnaeus Pompeius, in which he praises the military successes of Pompey, and For Marcellus, a panegyric in praise of the dictator Julius Caesar. These new translations preserve Cicero's rhetorical brilliance and achieve new standards of accuracy. A general introduction outlines Cicero's public career, and separate introductions explain the political significance of each of the speeches. Together with its companion volume, Defence Speeches, this edition provides an unparalleled sampling of Cicero's oratorical achievements.

"Jacques Ranciere has continually unsettled political discourse, particularly through his questioning of aesthetic "distributions of the sensible," which configure the limits of what can be seen and said. Widely recognized as a seminal work in Ranciere's corpus, the translation of which is long overdue, Mute Speech is an intellectual tour de force proposing a new framework for thinking about the history of art and literature. Ranciere argues that our current notion of "literature" is a relatively recent creation, having first appeared in the wake of the French Revolution and with the rise of Romanticism. In its rejection of the system of representational hierarchies that had constituted belles-letters, "literature" is founded upon a radical equivalence in which all things are possible expressions of the life of a people. With an analysis reaching back to Plato, Aristotle, the German Romantics, Vico, and Cervantes and concluding with brilliant readings of Flaubert, Mallarme, and Proust, Ranciere demonstrates the uncontrollable democratic impulse lying at the heart of literature's still-vital capacity for reinvention."--Publisher description.

Can a good speech save democracy? “Anyone interested in the past, present and future of speeches and speechwriting will find [this] a fascinating read.” —The Spectator When First Lady Michelle Obama approached the podium at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, nobody could have predicted that her rousing line “When they go low, we go high” would become the motto for the political left and an anthem for opponents of oppression worldwide. It was a speech with the kind of emotional pull rarely heard these days, joining a long list of addresses that have made history. But what was it that made this speech so great? When They Go Low, We Go High explores the most notable speeches in history, analyzing the rhetorical techniques to uncover how the right speech at the right time can profoundly shape the world. Traveling across continents and centuries, political speechwriter Philip Collins reveals what Thomas Jefferson owes to Cicero and Pericles; who really gave the Gettysburg Address; and what Elizabeth I shares with Winston Churchill. In telling the stories of famous and sometimes infamous speeches—including those from Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., Disraeli, Hitler, Elie Wiesel, Margaret Thatcher, and Barack and Michelle Obama—Collins breathes new life into words you thought you knew well, telling the story of democracy. Whether it’s the inaugural addresses of presidents or the revolutionary writings of Castro, Pankhurst, and Mandela, Collins illuminates and contextualizes these moments with sensitivity and humor. When They Go Low, We Go High examines the power of public speaking and serves as an urgent reminder that words can change the world. “Hits on three unassailable truths: rhetoric and democracy must go hand-in-hand; democracy, for all of its flaws, is superior to tyranny; and democracy is currently under assault.” —Paste “Collins . . . understands intimately the mechanics of rhetoric. He believes that we, as human beings, possess the capacity to extract ourselves from the swamp in which we have sunk.” —The Times

Using Hannah Arendt’s account of the Greek polis to explain Milton’s fascination with the idea of public speech, this book reveals what is distinctive about his conception of a godly, republican oratory and poetics. Setting Milton’s poetry and prose in the context of Civil War polemic; classical political theory and its early modern reinterpretations; and Renaissance writing on rhetoric and poetic language, the volume culminates in an Arendtian reading of his ‘Greek’ drama Samson Agonistes.

Identifies and explains the constitutional problems triggered by the government's speech, and proposes a new framework for thinking about them.

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Politics and the English Language, the second in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell takes aim at the language used in politics, which, he says, ‘is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’. In an age where the language used in politics is constantly under the microscope, Orwell’s Politics and the English Language is just as relevant today, and gives the reader a vital understanding of the tactics at play. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

In Beyond Free Speech and Propaganda: The Political Development of Hollywood, 1907–1927, Jay Douglas Steinmetz provides an original and detailed account of the political developments that shaped the American Film Industry in the silent years. In the 1900s and 1910s, the American film industry often embraced the arguments of film free speech and extolled the virtues of propagandistic cinema—the visual art of persuasion seen as part and parcel of deliberative democracy. The development of American cinema in these years was formatively shaped by conflicts with another industry of cultural consumption: liquor. Exhibitors battled with their competitors, the ubiquitous saloon, while film producers often attacked the immorality of drink with explosive propaganda on the screen. But the threat of censorship and economic regulation necessitated control and mastery over the social power of the cinema (its capacity to influence the public through the visualization of ideas) not an open medium of expression or an explicitly political instrument of molding public opinion. By the early 1920s, big producer-distributors based in Southern California sidelined arguments for film free speech and tamped down the propagandistic possibilities of the screen. Through their trade association, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, headed by Republican insider Will H. Hays, the emerging moguls of Hollywood negotiated government regulation, prohibition, and the insurgency of the Ku Klux Klan in the turbulent 1920s. A complex and interconnected work of political history, this volume also uncovers key aspects in the development of modern free speech, propaganda in American political culture, the modern Republican Party, cultural developments leading up to prohibition, and the rise and fall of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. This work will be of particular interest to film and political historians interested in social movements, economic development, regulation, and the evolution of consumer capitalism in the early 20th century.

In this foundational exploration of political expression and participation, de Certeau examines who has the right to speak, how this right is acquired, and what happens when this right is denied or inhibited. He emphasizes that all too often free speech is upheld in the abstract while social institutions work in such a way to deny access to effective communication.

This book examines the history of the legal discourse around political falsehood and its future in the wake of the 2012 US Supreme Court decision in US v. Alvarez through communication law, political philosophy, and communication theory perspectives. As US v. Alvarez confirmed First Amendment protection for lies, Robert N. Spicer addresses how the ramifications of that decision function by looking at statutory and judicial handling of First Amendment protection for political deception. Illustrating how commercial speech is regulated but political speech is not, Spicer evaluates the role of deception in politics and its consequences for democracy in a contemporary political environment where political personalities, partisan media, and dark money donors bend the truth and abuse the virtue of free expression.