The Right to Rule is a rich and learned examination of American identity in all of its varied, evolving, and contradictory forms. Americans today are asking 'Who are we? How did we get here?' For answers, they would do well to start with Hugh De Santis's enthralling account.

Andrew J. Bacevich, professor emeritus of international relations and history, Boston University, and president of Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

Vastly erudite, well-documented, and wide-ranging, Hugh De Santis’s book is, he writes, ‘ultimately… a provocation.’ After a tour of other empires in world history, he tracks ‘the myth of American exceptionalism’ and its shifting shape through the entire course of the American past, from Winthrop’s ‘city on a hill’ to Trump. Will the idea lead, or mislead, the country into a future multipolar world? Read this book for a reasoned answer.

Walter Nugent, professor emeritus, University of Notre Dame; author of Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion

A timely, bold, and elegantly written exploration of American exceptionalism in its many incarnations, The Right to Rule is a plea for a realistic approach to a changing world order unbound from the nation’s belief in its providential purpose.

Bob Kerrey, former US Senator; author of When I Was a Young Man