The Patient Has the Floor: Essays
()
About this ebook
In his Letter from America reports for the BBC and as the host of PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre, Alistair Cooke addressed millions of people all over the world every week. The fourteen essays collected here, each of which was first delivered as a speech, showcase the wit, charm, and eloquence of Cooke’s voice in more intimate, but no less intimidating, settings.
In exclusive forums as varied as the Mayo Clinic and a conference of British and American scholars investigating the “state of the language,” Cooke eagerly challenges expert opinions and delightfully skewers the pretensions of the powerful. Addressing the House of Representatives on the bicentennial of the Continental Congress, he warns against the dangers of sentimentalizing history and wryly notes that “practically every man who signed the Declaration of Independence is at this moment being measured for a halo or, at worst a T-shirt.” At the Royal College of Surgeons in London, he compares his listeners to armed robbers and to the disreputable half of that infamous duo Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. “If I could be benevolent dictator of the United States for a year,” he informs the National Trust for Historic Preservation, “I should provide several million jobs for the wrecking industry.”
No one played the devil’s advocate with as much grace and good humor as did Alistair Cooke. The Patient Has the Floor is an eminently quotable testament to his extraordinary talents as a journalist, scholar, and public speaker.
Alistair Cooke
Alistair Cooke, KBE (1908–2004), was a legendary British American journalist, television host, and radio broadcaster. He was born in Lancashire, England, and after graduating from the University of Cambridge, was hired as a journalist for the BBC. He rose to prominence for his London Letter reports, broadcast on NBC Radio in America during the 1930s. Cooke immigrated to the United States in 1937. In 1946, he began a tradition that would last nearly six decades—his Letter from America radio appearances on the BBC. Cooke was also beloved as the host of PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre for twenty-one years. He wrote many books, both collections of his Letters from America and other projects. After his death, the Fulbright Alistair Cooke Award in Journalism was established to support students from the United Kingdom seeking to study in the United States, and vice versa.
Read more from Alistair Cooke
Six Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The American Home Front, 1941–1942 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMemories of the Great & the Good Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters from America, 1946–1951 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Americans: Letters from America 1969–1979 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Generation on Trial: U.S.A. v. Alger Hiss Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Talk About America, 1951–1968 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alistair Cooke at the Movies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fun & Games with Alistair Cooke: On Sport and Other Amusements Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerica Observed: From the 1940s to the 1980s Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vintage Mencken Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alistair Cooke Collection Volume One: Letters from America, Talk About America, and The Americans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGolf: The Marvelous Mania Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Patient Has the Floor
Related ebooks
Talk About America, 1951–1968 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Troubadour Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A History Of Australia (Volumes 1 & 2): From the Earliest Times to 1838 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Alistair Cooke at the Movies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Welcome to Kington: The Selected Columns of Miles Kington Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGallipoli Diary: World War I Memoirs: Complete Edition (Vol. 1&2) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales by Polish Authors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThis Is The Schoolroom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scottish Wit Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Alistair Cooke Collection Volume One: Letters from America, Talk About America, and The Americans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Vintage Mencken Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Churchill Documents - Volume 1: Youth: 1874-1896 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTunes of Glory Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bandit Country: Seven Days in the Life of a British Soldier Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHaud Ma Chips, Ah've Drapped the Wean!: 'Glesca Grannies' Sayings, Patter and Advice Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWe Danced On Our Desks: Brilliance and backstabbing at the Sixties' most influential magazine Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5History of Friedrich II of Prussia (All 21 Volumes): Biography of the Famous Prussian King, Called Frederick the Great Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1847: A Chronicle of Genius, Generosity & Savagery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Three Mulla-Mulgars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLieutenant Reim Collection Set (Reim 1 - 5): An East German Spy Series: Reim Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArchibald MacLeish: An American Life Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Runagates Club Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Printer's Error: Irreverent Stories of Books History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brief Diversions: Being Tales, Travesties and Epigrams Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTom Brown's School Days Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5George Passant Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Asquith Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street: Letters Between Nancy Mitford and Heywood Hill 1952–73 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYou’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone: The life and work of Eric Morecambe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
United States History For You
Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twelve Years a Slave (Illustrated) (Two Pence books) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Album: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Patient Has the Floor
0 ratings0 reviews