Philip Collins - When They Go Low, We Go High - Speeches that shape the world – and why we need them

Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Acknowledgements List of Speeches PROLOGUE – The Perils of Indifference CHAPTER 1 – Democracy: Through Politics the People Are Heard CHAPTER 2 – War: Through Politics Peace Will Prevail CHAPTER 3 – Nation: Through Politics the Nation Is Defined CHAPTER 4 – Progress: Through Politics the Condition of the People Is Improved CHAPTER 5 – Revolution: Through Politics the Worst Is Avoided EPILOGUE – When They Go Low, We Go High Bibliography Index PAPERBACK EXCLUSIVE – The Rights of Man About the Author About the Publisher

4th Estate

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This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2017 by 4th Estate

Copyright © Philip Collins 2017

Philip Collins asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Excerpts from ‘I Have a Dream’ speech by Martin Luther King Jr reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as agent for the proprietor New York, NY. Copyright © Martin Luther King Jr 1963, renewed copyright © Coretta Swift King 1991. We are also grateful to Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, for permission to reproduce the extract entitled ‘The speech from the Berlin Sportsplatz 1938’ from The Speeches of Adolf Hitler April 1922 – August 1939 (1942), Adolf Hitler and Professor Norman Hepburn Baynes, Oxford University Press and Royal Institute of International Affairs. Speech by Isidora Dolores Ibárruri Gómez (La Pasionaria), ‘ No Pasarán ’, 1936, reproduced courtesy of Lawrence & Wishart.

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Source ISBN: 9780008235680

Ebook Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780008235673

Version: 2018-05-01

To the memory of Jennifer Anne Taylor (1942–2014) and Frederick John Collins (1940–2015)

Cover

Title Page Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Acknowledgements List of Speeches PROLOGUE – The Perils of Indifference CHAPTER 1 – Democracy: Through Politics the People Are Heard CHAPTER 2 – War: Through Politics Peace Will Prevail CHAPTER 3 – Nation: Through Politics the Nation Is Defined CHAPTER 4 – Progress: Through Politics the Condition of the People Is Improved CHAPTER 5 – Revolution: Through Politics the Worst Is Avoided EPILOGUE – When They Go Low, We Go High Bibliography Index PAPERBACK EXCLUSIVE – The Rights of Man About the Author About the Publisher

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgements

List of Speeches

PROLOGUE – The Perils of Indifference

CHAPTER 1 – Democracy: Through Politics the People Are Heard

CHAPTER 2 – War: Through Politics Peace Will Prevail

CHAPTER 3 – Nation: Through Politics the Nation Is Defined

CHAPTER 4 – Progress: Through Politics the Condition of the People Is Improved

CHAPTER 5 – Revolution: Through Politics the Worst Is Avoided

EPILOGUE – When They Go Low, We Go High

Bibliography

Index

PAPERBACK EXCLUSIVE – The Rights of Man

About the Author

About the Publisher

I have been privileged to write speeches in one great institution and about them in another. In 10 Downing Street I had the pleasure of writing for Tony Blair, which changed the course of my career, if such a word is appropriate for my random array of jobs. The Times then took me in and my thanks are due to Daniel Finkelstein for suggesting that move in the first place. Then also to successive editors, James Harding and John Witherow, for commissioning the speech analysis format which I have followed in this book.

For the way the format stretched into an ambitious thesis, I salute Claire Conrad, my agent, and Helen Garnons-Williams, my editor, whose diplomatic skill in making a major rewrite sound like a tweak was exemplary. I think I minded more, not less, because she was always right. Thanks to Siobhan Reynolds for reading things so that I didn’t have to and to the team at 4th Estate for doing such a professional job, so quickly. I hope I did the same.

Finally, an enormous yes to Geeta Guru-murthy and the two perfect perishers, my chief critics, Hari and Mani Collins. If any errors have eluded their searching questions the fault for that will be mine. That’s their story, anyway. My story is in the pages that follow.

Marcus Tullius Cicero: First Philippic against Mark Antony, The Senate, the Temple of Concord, Rome, 2 September 44 BC

Thomas Jefferson: Equal and Exact Justice to All Men, First Inaugural Address, Washington DC, 4 March 1801

Abraham Lincoln: Government of the People, by the People, for the People, The Gettysburg Address, 19 November 1863

John F. Kennedy: Ask Not What Your Country Can Do for You, Washington DC, 20 January 1961

Barack Obama: I Have Never Been More Hopeful about America, Grant Park, Chicago, 7 November 2012

Pericles: Funeral Oration, Athens, Winter, c. 431 BC

David Lloyd George: The Great Pinnacle of Sacrifice, Queen’s Hall, London, 19 September 1914

Woodrow Wilson: Making the World Safe for Democracy, Joint Session of the Two Houses of Congress, 2 April 1917

Winston Churchill: Their Finest Hour, House of Commons, 18 June 1940

Ronald Reagan: Tear Down This Wall, The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, 12 June 1987

Elizabeth I of England: I Have the Heart and Stomach of a King, Tilbury, 9 August 1588

Benjamin Franklin: I Agree to This Constitution with All Its Faults, The Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, 17 September 1787

Jawaharlal Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny, Constituent Assembly, Parliament House, New Delhi, 14 August 1947