Description of book
There is no better way to deploy your arguments and tell your story - no better way to convict a criminal or defend an innocent or prosecute a cause or toast your gran's birthday - than with a speech.
Speechmaker and speechwriter Michael Fullilove has gathered the finest Australian speeches delivered since Federation. Each one is a time capsule, a window onto a debate or controversy from our history.
‘MEN AND WOMEN OF AUSTRALIA!’ contains speeches that sing, speeches that engage your heart and your head: speeches you will want to read aloud to your children, your parents or your class. The speeches are skilfully introduced and arranged by theme: Australian history and culture, politics, causes worth fighting for, human rights, Australians at war, monarchy and republic, and remembrance. The dean of Australia's speechwriters, Graham Freudenberg, has written the Foreword. This definitive collection proves that great speeches are not only delivered in a Churchillian growl or a Kennedyesque brogue, but in an Australian drawl as well.
Reviews
" … if you must buy a book not written by me this Chrissie, you could do worse than get the one edited and compiled by Michael Fullilove, entitled Men and Women of Australia! Our Greatest Modern Speeches. My only criticism is that a book of such class should actually have been encased in leather and released with hoo ha befitting the words within." Peter FitzSimons, The Sun Herald
Several collections of, and books about, Australian speeches have appeared in recent years. Fullilove's is neither the most political nor encyclopedic, but it is the best and most personal. It's cleverly organized, includes some surprising gems and, as a bonus, sits nicely in your hands. "Our speeches are leaner than most, and more direct," writes the one-time speechwriter to former Prime Minister Paul Keating and now director of the global issues program at the Lowy Institute. Although his choices favor Labor leaders such as Keating, Gough Whitlam and John Curtin, there's a good sample from the Tories, including Robert Menzies, Alfred Deakin and John Howard. Each selection is adroitly and briefly introduced. Fullilove laments that today's speechmaking and writing ain't what they used to be, particularly in foreign affairs. Yet in the era of short attention spans, the speech still endures. Why? "Because there is no better way to deploy your arguments and develop your themes—and tell your story," he writes. Tom Dusevic TIME Magazine, 15 May 2006
AS Graham Freudenberg points out in his foreword, speeches are important to us: some of us sum up for the prosecution, some see a Light on the Hill, and some are content to toast Gran's birthday.
This book is a marvellous collection of Australiana. Here Sir Robert Menzies "did but see her passing by"; Gough Whitlam thought it "was time"; Sir John Gorton showed himself perhaps the most decent man ever to lead his country; Frank Lowy gives a moving account of what it means to be Jewish.
While the sparkle of Fred Daly's wit does not really come through on the printed page, the sheer venom of Billy Hughes is undiluted, and Frank Bethune's sermon, on a troopship in 1916, makes us realise how we, as a nation, have changed.
The speeches in this collection represent history in the raw; they, incidentally, make great bedside reading.
David Christie, The Newcastle Herald
THIS excellent collection of speeches reaffirms just how powerful the spoken word can be. Former prime ministerial adviser Michael Fullilove has compiled an inspired collection of oratory that seamlessly spans time, place and theme. From our first prime minister, Edmond Barton, in 1901 on the challenge ahead in building a nation to Paul Keating's inspired telling of the origins of Waltzing Matilda and Andrew Denton's "I worship the very protector he sweats in" tribute to Allan Border, this is Australia in the palm of your hand.
In a word: inspiring
HERALD SUN, Melbourne
So it is no easy task to collect speeches, the essence of our oral history, and reduce them to book form. It is a task Fullilove has performed with gusto. He sets the chosen pieces in seven themes, each speech prefaced with a short but informative blurb on the speaker, and more importantly, the speech – what its purpose was and who its immediate audience.
Meanwhile, the best line in the book belongs not to the subjects but to their editor. In his acknowledgments, Fullilove thanks Keating for showing him “the psychic income that comes from public service”. Something for the rest of us, lawyer or lay, to ponder as we go about our Australian lives.
David Ash, Barrister
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