Great Speeches

54 famous public speeches from the past 150 years, from Abraham Lincoln to Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Charles III Can rhetoric make history? Yes, rhetoric has made it possible to enhance some extraordinary moments in history, or even to make some moments memorable precisely because of the use of words. This selection includes 54 famous public speeches from the past 150 years, listed in alphabetical order according to their authors. They range from the political speeches of Abraham Lincoln to those of Churchill, Blair and Obama, as well as Roosevelt and Kennedy, and ending with Elizabeth II and Charles III. However, also great speeches on civic issues are mentioned: from Martin Luther King Jr. to Nelson Mandela, from Jose Mujica Cordano to Sidney Poitier and Greta Thunberg. Moreover, some Nobel Prize acceptance speeches: from Ernest Hemingway to William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, from John Steinbeck to Elie Wiesel and Malala Yousafzai. There is also one of the most famous motivational speeches ever, that of Steve Jobs, and the speeches of figures who also ruled history through words, such as Hitler and Mussolini.

Gianluca Sposito (1973) is an Italian lawyer and scholar. He has been teaching "Legal Argumentation and Forensic Rhetoric" at the University of Urbino since 2004. He is one of Italy's leading experts on rhetoric and communication.

Rhetorically Series Global readability, Italian charm