To Love a Country: The Problem of Patriotism in America
Dominic Erdozain
Jun 2026 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Sean Patrick Hopkins
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6 hr 59 min
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About this audiobook
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.
“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.
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 sing...
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About the author
Dominic Erdozain is a historian and writer with a passion for bringing the past into dialogue with the present. Erdozain has written widely on the intellectual origins of democracy and published articles for CNN and Time. He is the author of One Nation Under Guns and a graduate of Oxford and Cambridge. He is currently a visiting professor at Emory University.
Dominic Erdozain is a historian and writer with a passion for bringing the past into dialogue with the present. Erdozain has written widely on the intellectual origins of democracy and published articles for CNN and Time. He is the author of One Nation Under Guns and a graduate of Oxford and Camb...
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