The Right Words: Great Republican Speeches That Shaped History

Hall, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, believes that "Leftist Academe" has effected an "erasure of Republican remembrance," something he seeks to correct with this collection of 17 speeches by members of the Grand Old Party. Some of these texts are seminal pieces of American political oratory—Richard Nixon's "Checkers" speech; Reagan's 1987 remarks at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. In his prefatory notes to each speech, Hall teases out themes, such as commitments to "individualism, military strength, and self-reliance," that have long marked Republican thinking. Unfortunately, Hall's hysterical introduction to the book—which is more about the "radicalized professoriate" and the "liberal Democrats [who] dominate our nation's campuses" than about Republicans—will alienate readers who don't share his partisan viewpoint. Indeed, this anthology doesn't adequately testify to ideological diversity within the Republican Party; yes, Lincoln's two most famous speeches (the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural) lead the book, and Hall includes two by Teddy Roosevelt, but after that, it's on to William F. Buckley and Dwight Eisenhower. This would have been a much different book had Hall included samples of, say, Radical Republican speechifying during Reconstruction. (Mar.)