The Right to Rule: American Exceptionalism and the Coming Multipolar World Order

(Paperback)

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In The Right to Rule: American Exceptionalism and the Coming Multipolar World Order, Hugh De Santis explores the evolution of American exceptionalism and its effect on the nations relations with the external world. De Santis argues that the self-image of an exceptional, providentially blessed society unlike any other is a myth that pays too little heed to the history that shaped Americas emergence, including its core beliefs and values, which are inheritances from seventeenth-century England. From the republics founding to its rise as the worlds preeminent power, American exceptionalism has underpinned the nations foreign policy, but it has become an anachronism in the twenty-first century. De Santis argues that, in the emerging multipolar world order, the United States will be one of several powers that determine the structure and rules of international politics, rather than the sole arbiter.

Reviews

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 Santiss 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 Winthrops 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 nations belief in its providential purpose. -- Bob Kerrey, former US Senator; author of When I Was a Young Man

Author Bio

Hugh De Santis is independent scholar and writer.