To Love a Country

On the eve of America’s 250th anniversary comes a groundbreaking history of patriotism and the question of how to love a country.

“Erdozain writes with a poet’s concision but a maximalist’s zeal, leaving no room in his historical account for any doubt that American exceptionalism has been a singularly detrimental force.”—Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic

As the battle over American democracy plays out on the country’s streets, Dominic Erdozain’s urgent, brilliant new book brings the longstanding tension between patriotism and freedom into sharp focus. Love of country, he shows, helped create the nation and forge a national identity, but it has also drawn lines over who gets to be an American and what the country will be. Americans waved goodbye to monarchy in 1776, but patriotism—and the near-religious sense of being a chosen people—offered its own slippery slope toward tyranny.

In To Love a Country, historian Dominic Erdozain shows how pride in America as the world’s leading democracy has frustrated the nation’s foundational promises. Through rigorous research and candid storytelling, he reveals how the myth of American exceptionalism has fostered military aggression abroad, inequality at home, and the denial of freedom and civil discourse everywhere.

Yet more than an illuminating examination of the past, To Love a Country is also a story of hope for the future. It is a moving reflection on how to maintain faith in the American promise in a time of division and despair. By learning from movements that have transcended borders and ideologies—and by listening to the voices of reformers like Jane Addams, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi—Erdozain leads the way to a renewed commitment to the values of liberty, equality, and justice.