In Praise of Eloquence: "If truth were self-evident, eloquence would not be necessary (Cicero). Eloquence may set fire to reason. (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.) This book is a significant historical anthology of the some of the world’s greatest speeches, beginning with Moses proclaiming the Ten Commandments and ending with President Eisenhower's Inaugural Address. Each speech is prefaced with its dramatic and biographical setting as well as placed in its full historical perspective. A few of the orator's whose speeches appear in this revised/expanded version: Moses, Jesus, Queen Elizabeth, John Wilkes, General Bonaparte, Daniel Webster, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, Sam Houston, Huxley, Emile Zola, Trotsky, Gandhi, Mussolini, Churchill, Stalin, Faulkner, Douglas MacArthur, Roosevelt, Khrushchev, Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. The speeches were selected and edited by Houston Peterson. He was as interesting and diversified as the numerous orators of fame included in this book. A descendant of Sam Houston, (Texas pioneer), he was a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. He conducted a popular series of free lectures at Cooper Union from 1938 to 1946. Peterson specialized in the philosophy of literature. And was well known for his dramatic lectures, both in and out of the classroom. Appearing frequently on radio and television in 1950's, in such topics as, ''The Mahatma and the Professor,'' discussed philosophy and baseball with Branch Rickey, a former owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Peterson was best known for the free forum at Cooper Union, where leading thinkers and writers of the day, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Thomas Mann and Margaret Mead, addressed as many as 54,000 people a year.