<DIV><p class="MsoNormal">With vivid insight and rousing examples, <i>The President’s Speech </i>prys apart America’s most important presidential speeches, phrase by phrase, and examines the pivotal, often familiar, and always potent language of these speeches. Author C. Edwin Vilade provides the framework for each speech, both within the context of its era and also as a point on a timeline of our country’s long history. From George Washington’s Farewell Address to George W. Bush’s Axis of Evil State of the Union Address, Vilade reveals the varied and often conflicting points of view that shaped the final famous words.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> Color facsimiles with actual edits, deletions, additions, and notes show how remarkable and forceful language was crafted, sometimes at the last minute, into the enduring words made famous by their timing, context, delivery and power, from the 1823 Monroe Doctrine to Ronald Reagan’s “tear down that wall, Mr. Gorbachev” speech at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, revealing political and social currents that frame these words for modern times.</p></div>