Graduation Day: The Best Of America's Commencement Speeches - Hardcover

Albanese, Andrew & Trissl; Plimpton, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688160336 ISBN 13: 9780688160333

Publisher: William Morrow, 1998

Synopsis

Published just in time for graduation day, this inspiring collection of commencement addresses celebrates the value of education, and its crucial place in the weaving of our social fabric. By turns playful and profound, Graduation Day includes speeches from Jodi Foster, Russell Baker, Alice Walker, Robert Redford, Bill Clinton, Ann Richards, Toni Morrison, and others. This unique anthology will be well cherished long after graduation day.

About this title

Reviews

An odd idea, well done but with, it would seem, a relatively small audience. The editors have gathered together the transcripts of a number of commencement speeches given at American colleges and universities in the 1980s and '90s by a variety of notables and celebrities (including Dan Rather, Carl Sagan, Mario Cuomo, and Ronald Reagan, among others). A number of the speeches are surprisingly good: funny, frank, even occasionally stirring. Others, sounding both glib and bland, would seem to indicate the homogenizing presence of ghostwriters. The best pieces include Russell Bakers hilarious address offering advice to graduates (Dont go around in clothes that talk. Theres already too much talk in the world); Toni Morrisons powerful meditation on violence and hatred; and Hank Aarons heartfelt discussion of courage. A final section gathers together commencement speeches given over the past century (including addresses by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King Jr.), remind one of how unique and lasting a truly great commencement address can be. Few of the contemporary pieces, affecting as some of them are, reach those heights. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this collection of recent commencement speeches, all 35 orators query the purpose of a speech that most of them doubt their listeners will heed. Entertainers such as Jodie Foster or Sting apparently think accounts of their own careers are inspiring. Humorists Russell Baker and Garrison Keillor modestly advise graduates to get married and procreate. Dan Rather's refrain to the audience at Austin is the opaque slogan "The time to be a Texan . . . is now." (Do Texans have a choice?) Surprise is often a speech's most notable quality. Mario Cuomo famously addressed the parents of the graduates, not the graduates, about teaching their kids ethics. Colgate alumni anticipating a serve-humanity oration from Andy Rooney probably should have known that this professional complainer would give them an anticomputer tirade, but new alumni of Pomona got what they expected from actor Patrick Stewart: dilations on Shakespeare and Star Trek. An eclectic collection for the commencement season. Gilbert Taylor

Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0688160336
• ISBN 13: 9780688160333
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256