The greatest book ever written on Oratory.

Heiko Khoo, a well known orator at the speakers’ corner

Ever Since I had a debating contest at the Speakers’ corner in Hyde park, London in January 2011, I have had the privilege of reading several books by a number of classical authors on the subject of rhetoric and oratory at the British Library.

After my performance (handily won by the way against a conservative politician) A few works listed below, were among the books that I read:

1. Art of rhetoric by Aristotle.
2. Rhetoric and Renaissance by Heinrich F. Plett.
3. Renaissance Rhetoric by Peter Mack.
4. The rhetoric of Cicero in its medieval and early renaissance by Virginia Cox.

None of these listed books seemed to hit my intellectual sweet spot, until I discovered a book written by a French theologian( Louis Eugene Marie Bautain)in the mid 19th century, titled Art of extempore speaking; hints for the pulpit, senate and the bar.

When you think of all the phenomenal orators, whose speeches have rocked our world in the 20th and 21st Centuries such as, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, William Jennings Bryan, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and of course Barack Hussein Obama, you get the impression that Louis Bautain had written this little known book with all of them in mind.