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1 thought on “Speeches that Reshaped the World”
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I am greatly enjoying cataloguing this excellent book, but have been very struck, on reaching page 170 ([post id="3740"]), by the ghettoisation of women into a “Great Women” section. The intent is clear (to highlight the achievements of female speakers), but the unintended consequence is pernicious: to significantly understate the contribution of female speakers to world events. Helen Keller’s speech is notable (among many other qualities) for not making an issue (except implicitly) of her gender. The most important uses of gendered language are, in an old-fashioned way, the use of male terminology to refer to all humans (e.g. “The ballot does not make a free man out of a wage slave”) in a way that dates her feminism, but not her message. Precisely because of this, it should have had a place in the previous section, on War. Someone jumping to that section for important statements on World War I might miss this important contribution all together. The America-centrism of the book is another issue I might tackle at some other point but, for example, one of Margaret Thatcher’s speeches on the Falklands might have made an excellent addition or, if America-centrism was so important, one of Madeleine Albright’s speeches on the conflict in Bosnia and Herzogovina. It was a delight to discover the courtroom speech by Gandhi earlier in the volume, which I only knew previously from its brief sketch in Richard Attenborough’s film; one of Kasturba Gandhi’s excellent (yet occasionally troubling in their subservience to her husband) speeches might have made a fascinating counterpart. As I indicate at the start of this comment, this comment is not so much a fundamental snipe at this otherwise excellent volume, but perhaps more a musing on my need and wish to publish or otherwise explore my own collection of important speeches over the next few years …