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  • The Art of Public Speaking: Lessons from the Greatest Speeches in History

  • Written by: John R. Hale, The Great Courses
  • Narrated by: John R. Hale
  • Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (33 ratings)

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The Art of Public Speaking: Lessons from the Greatest Speeches in History

Written by: John R. Hale,The Great Courses
Narrated by: John R. Hale
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Publisher's Summary

Being a great public speaker can put you on the pathway to success, whether you're looking to teach, inform, persuade, or defend an idea. Yet many of us live in fear of public speaking. We experience stage fright or believe that speeches are best left to those with more intuitive talent. But nothing could be further from the truth.

As you'll learn in these 12 invaluable lectures, all it takes is confidence, practice, and the knowledge of techniques and strategies used by history's greatest public speakers, from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, Jr.

This insider's look at public speaking shows you three key components to help you succeed in any situation:

  • How to prepare for public speaking: Learn from Patrick Henry and others how to overcome stage fright, control your voice, use humor, and personalize your delivery.
  • How to craft a great speech: Learn how to build captivating speeches from people such as Susan B. Anthony and how to use stories, examples, logic, and impressive visual images.
  • How to handle your audience: Learn from Gandhi and others how to focus on your audience, invite them to share your vision, and inspire them to change.

Whether you want to finally become the confident public speaker you've always wanted to be or are just looking for fresh advice on how to strengthen your skills, this inspiring course is packed with practical advice to help you learn one of the most important skills in your personal and professional life.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2010 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2010 The Great Courses

What listeners say about The Art of Public Speaking: Lessons from the Greatest Speeches in History

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Insightful, helpful, captivating

This was a very well researched crafted and delivered series. Each new chapter brought new angles and insights that I can implement in the public speaking work that I do right away. The examples given from history brought huge credibility to the principles been taught,. This work substantiated in my mind advice that I have known to be accurate and things also that I’ve known to be awkward. A case in point is “tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them” listening to this method is like nails on s chalk board, and dr. Hale addresses this. I have been involved in public speaking for 35 years on a weekly basis, and was impressed with this work. This was the second book I listened to on this subject, the first was a great disappointment, Dr hale’s was a breath of fresh air.

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Fascinating!

This lecture was incredibly helpful and easy to understand.
I was multitasking while listening to Dr. John R. Hale. He has a friendly which is extremely helpful when teaching public speaking. He often changed the tone of his voice to elaborate how and when to draw the audience attention.
Thank you 😊

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Satisfactory

This course is not the strongest of the Great Courses. The premise of the course didn't work for me. I asked myself several times: how can you suggest that someone was a great speaker when they were alive over 2000 or 500 years ago? Dr. Hale uses several examples where he's using historically great speeches to drive home points about great public speakers. This just didn't work for me. As well, the each chapter is to impart a lesson regarding how to become a bettter speaker, but these lessons did not come through particularly well. The specific points he was trying to make often didn't map very well on the historical examples he provided. This book could have been much more effective if he use many more modern examples, where there was actual audio to use. Over the past 80 years or so, there could have been many people who could have been used to help him make his same points. As it was, he used two or three (MLK and JFK) but then only in limited fashion.

There are better books on how to become a public speaker. I will say that the historical examples that were provided were interesting.

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Worst performance ever

I really wanted to know more on this topic, but the gentleman teaching about public speaking is TERRIBLE. Do not but this audiobook

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