Speech Science

Ask Not is a beautifully detailed account of the week leading up to the inaugural which stands as one of the most moving spectacles in the history of American politics. At the heart of the narrative is Kennedy's quest to create a speech that would distill American dreams and empower a new generation. Clarke's portrait of JFK during what intimates called his happiest days is balanced, revealing the president at his most dazzlingly charismatic (and cunningly pragmatic).

In The Most Human Right, Eric Heinze explains why global human rights systems have failed. International organizations constantly report on how governments manage human goods, such as fair trials, humane conditions of detention, healthcare, or housing. But to appease autocratic regimes, experts have ignored the primacy of free speech. Heinze argues that goods become rights only when citizens can claim them publicly and fearlessly: free speech is the fundamental right, without which the very concept of a “right” makes no sense.

When he was 14, Joshua Wong made history. He staged the first-ever student protest in Hong Kong to oppose National Education, a "reform" which would have stifled free speech - and won. Since then, Joshua has led the Umbrella Movement, founded a political party, and rallied the international community around the anti-extradition bill protests, which have seen two million people - more than a quarter of the population - take to Hong Kong's streets. His actions have sparked worldwide attention, earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, and landed him in jail twice.

A number one New York Times best-selling author, Harvard Law School professor, and tireless defender of civil liberties unearths a little-known letter by his hero, Thomas Jefferson, and shares its secrets. The letter illuminates Jefferson’s views on freedom of speech in a way that has important implications for the country today, particularly in the struggle against terrorism. This book is about the remarkable letter Alan Dershowitz found, how he found it, and why it matters not only to him, but to us today.

George H.W. Bush takes a special look back on the momentous global events of 1989-1992 - the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the liberation of Kuwait, to name a few - and reminisces about what it was like to be President through such unprecedented times. Choosing from among the hundreds of speeches he gave while in office, former President Bush selects the speeches that meant the most to him, and introduces each one with candid comments.

Rights are a sacred part of American identity. Yet they were an afterthought for the Framers. Only as a result of the racial strife that exploded during the Civil War—and a series of resulting missteps by the Supreme Court—did rights gain such outsized power. Over and again, courts have treated rights conflicts as zero-sum games in which awarding rights to one side means denying rights to others. As eminent legal scholar Jamal Greene shows in How Rights Went Wrong, we need to recouple rights with justice—before they tear society apart.

Hailed as the 'first freedom', free speech is the bedrock of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat. In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political and cultural history of this idea. Through captivating stories of free speech's many defenders, Mchangama demonstrates how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide.

Alan Dershowitz has been called "one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberties in America" by Politico and "the nation's most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights" by Newsweek. He is also a fair-minded and even-handed expert on the Constitution and our civil liberties, and in this book offers his knowledge and insight to help listeners understand the war being waged against free speech by the ostensibly well-meaning forces seeking to constrain this basic right.

Only once did David Foster Wallace give a public talk on his views on life, during a commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College. The speech is presented for the first time in audiobook form in This Is Water. How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? The speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others.

"Echoes of Expression: A Comprehensive Exploration of the Spoken Word" is an illuminating journey through the rich tapestry of human speech, from the dawn of language to the cutting-edge innovations of the digital era. This meticulously crafted book delves into the origins, evolution, and transformative power of speech, exploring its pivotal role in culture, society, and personal expression. With a keen eye on history, it highlights seminal speeches that have shaped the course of civilizations, and with a forward-looking perspective, it examines the impact of technology on our oldest form ...

In the midst of her groundbreaking twenty-year career in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm once declared, “Everyone—with the exception of the black woman herself—has been interpreting the black woman.” Edited and introduced by Zinga A. Fraser, Shirley Chisholm in Her Own Words gives listeners a rare opportunity to engage with the congresswoman’s powerful ideas in her own voice.

College campuses have become flashpoints of the current culture war and, consequently, much ink has been spilled over the relationship between universities and the cultivation or coddling of young American minds. Philosopher Sigal R. Ben-Porath takes head-on arguments that infantilize students who speak out against violent and racist discourse on campus or rehash interpretations of the First Amendment. Ben-Porath sets out to demonstrate the role of the university in American society and, specifically, how it can model free speech in ways that promote democratic ideals.

From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act traces the fight for free speech from the turn of the 19th century through the War on Terror. Christopher Finan has given us a vital history of our most fundamental, and most vulnerable, constitutional right.

"AI Speech Generator: Unleash the Power of Synthesized Speech" transforms your content with realistic, expressive voices that captivate audiences!

One of the most fiercely debated issues of this era is what to do about "bad" speech—hate speech, disinformation and propaganda campaigns, and incitement of violence—on the internet, and in particular speech on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. In Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of Our Democracy, Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone have gathered an eminent cast—including Hillary Clinton, Sheldon Whitehouse, Mark Warner, Cass Sunstein, and others—to explore the various dimensions of this problem in the American context.

Decades before the impeachment of an American president for a similar offense, Angelo Herndon was charged under Georgia law with "attempting to incite insurrection"—a crime punishable by death. In 1932, the eighteen-year-old Black Communist Party organizer was arrested and had his room illegally searched and his radical literature seized. Charged under an old slave insurrection statute, Herndon was convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to eighteen to twenty years on a chain gang.

At a critical moment in Jimmy Carter’s presidency, he gave a speech that should have changed the country. Instead it led to his downfall and ushered in the rise of the conservative movement in America. In What the Heck Are You Up to, Mr. President? Kevin Mattson gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the weeks leading up to Carter’s "malaise" speech, a period of great upheaval in the United States: the energy crisis had resulted in mile-long gas lines, inciting suburban riots and violence; the country’s morale was low and Carter’s ratings were even lower.

Millions of American families have turned to The Book of Virtues and The Moral Compass by William J. Bennett for moral guidance in troubled times. Our Sacred Honor offers inspiration and instruction as well -- this time of a particularly American sort.

The best-selling collection of patriotic poems, song lyrics, historical documents, and speeches, edited by and with an introduction by Caroline Kennedy. The America you will meet in A Patriot's Handbook is one that derives its strength from its diversity, and from the way our variety allows us constantly to reinvent ourselves. We are a country of poets, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to Langston Hughes; we are a country of songwriters, from Irving Berlin to Woody Guthrie. We are a country of "The Pledge of Allegiance", but also of "The Times They Are A-Changin.'"

Concerns about censorship have once again reached a fever pitch across the liberal West. With a few notable exceptions, complaints about censorship in the twenty-first century West are complaints about the behavior of private parties: employers, media conglomerates, social media platforms, and search engines. To better understand the concerns surrounding nonstate interference with speech, Private Censorship offers an account of censorship, as well as an assessment of the ethical and political issues it raises across contexts.