There were a couple of really interesting, moving and funny speeches here, but the majority were not any of those. Many speeches seemed to have been included because they focused on issues that are topical today, but that alone is not enough to make a speech enjoyable to read - they may have expressed admirable sentiments but weren't powerfully delivered or didn't veer off the beaten path in any way. I also thought the editor needed to have done more in terms of introducing the speeches to reduce the sense of one speech melting into the next over and over again, seemingly in no particular order. Short introductions are included, but for the most part they just provide the bare bones of a context and add very little to understanding the speech.

I had a special bone to pick with the audio edition. Totally inappropriate voice actors had been selected to read speeches they simply could not deliver with any conviction - the worst offender probably being the polite-sounding woman who read Queen Elizabeth I's famous 'I have the heart and stomach of a king' speech. ( )