The People Speak
Democracy is Not a Spectator Sport
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
'The idea was simple - take the most impassioned speeches about the fight for what is right and bring them to life for a new generation' COLIN FIRTH
The People Speak tells the story of Britain through the voices of the visionaries, dissenters, rebels and everyday folk who took on the Establishment and stood up for what they believed in. Here are their stories, letters, speeches and songs, from John Ball to Daniel Defoe; from Thomas Paine to Oscar Wilde; from the peasants' revolts to the suffragists to the anti-war demonstrators of today. Spanning almost 1,000 years and over 150 individual voices, these are some of the most powerful words in our history.
Compiled by Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth, influential writer Anthony Arnove and acclaimed historian David Horspool, The People Speak reminds us that history is not something gathering dust on a library shelf - and that democracy has never been a spectator sport.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The red flag and type on the cover of this anthology, edited by Oscar-winning actor Firth and historian Arnove, suggests a left-leaning tilt to this volume of speeches, broadsides, letters, and other British documents and the contents bear this out. According to Firth's introduction, the project was intended to be a way to capture "the voices of people who are left out of the textbooks." To that end, the editors have assembled a huge expanse of Britain's troublemakers, from Benedictine monk Orderic Vitalis writing about the Norman Conquest to literary superstar Zadie Smith speaking out against public library closures in 2011. The book is organized thematically, and covers issues like the rights of kings (a 1264 piece notes that "the law stands even if the King falls"), poverty, the working classes, slavery, equal rights, war, and many others. While many contributors are famous (e.g., Shakespeare and Margaret Thatcher), part of the pleasure of this wide-ranging volume is the diversity of its voices and forms. Helpfully, the editors provide introductions to the themes and the entries, along with a useful chronology. This is a decidedly atypical historical anthology and a paean to Britain's rich legacy of protest and dissent.
