A vital account of fifteen speeches and orators – from Benjamin Franklin to Barack Obama – that tells the story of the United States as a battle over what it means to be an American, from a New York Times bestselling author and former presidential speechwriter
What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide?
This sweeping history of the United States through fifteen key speeches relives the battle for American identity – from a New York Times bestselling author and one of President Obama’s former speechwriters.
For 250 years, America has debated what it means to be American. The question shaped the compromises in their constitution and the arguments they’ve had ever since, spawning abolitionism, secession and civil war, populism, mass migration and global leadership, movements for reform and the backlashes to them. All We Say tells the story of the United States through fifteen speeches – some iconic, others long forgotten, all pivotal – from its founding to the intense divisions of our times.
Through riveting and beautifully rendered accounts of the people, movements and moments that produced these speeches, Rhodes traces the history of America's battle over identity. The result is a singular and revealing portrait of the United States: a nation divided between two stories – one of inheritance, power, and exclusion, the other of equality, striving, and belonging. Drawing on a decade writing for Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes also reveals how words can redirect a nation, what makes a speech enduring, and why oratory is a unique form of persuasion in a democracy.
From Benjamin Franklin’s call for compromise at the Constitutional Convention to Alexander Stephens’ case for white supremacy as the cornerstone of the Confederacy, from Martin Luther King’s dream of true equality to Donald Trump’s rallying cry against democracy itself, these speeches remind us that history is a living argument. At a time when American identity – and truth – is contested, All We Say offers a fresh and powerful look at who America really us, and who it could still become.
About the Author
Ben Rhodes is the author of the New York Times bestsellers After the Fall and The World as It Is, co-host of Pod Save the World, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, a contributor for MS NOW, and a former deputy national security advisor and speechwriter to President Barack Obama.
Industry Reviews
Ben Rhodes is a true wordsmith, both consummate and passionate. All We Say is a marvellous, highly readable reminder of how words – both written and spoken – can make history and determine a nation’s identity
Sir Peter Westmacott, author of They Call It Diplomacy
A wonderful book – fascinating, thought-provoking and full of insights. Essential reading
Justin Webb, journalist and broadcaster
All We Say is a brilliant conceit — explore the longstanding debate over American identity through a close examination of fifteen exceptional speeches and the people who delivered them — and Ben Rhodes carries it off beautifully in this generous, trenchant, urgently needed book
Fredrik Logevall, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Embers of War
An absorbing primer of the argument we can’t escape, the history of a question our nation is still trying to answer, All We Say is — like its author — brilliant, generous, and wise. At a time of moral and political drift, Ben Rhodes reminds us what American greatness actually sounds like, and what it means
Ayad Akhtar, author of Homeland Elegies
Throughout American history, we have used words to try to discern what it means to live righteously in this land. How fortunate we are then to have this assembly of speeches and this uncommonly wise understanding of our past. All We Say is a book that asks us to remember that oration is always a form of moral suasion, and here Rhodes – an authority on speechwriting and having courage – demands that we not become petrified by the immensity of what is at stake in this country
Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist
PRAISE FOR THE WORLD AS IT IS One of the most compelling stories I've seen about what it's actually like to serve the American people
President Barack Obama
A stylish, beautifully written political memoir
Colum McCann
A classic coming-of-age story ... His achievement is rare for a political memoir: he has written a humane and honourable book
New York Times
A beautifully observed, essential record of what it was like to be there
Samantha Power
A rousing insight into America's conversation about itself
The oldie
Rhodes wants to show … that what is at stake is the identity of America itself. All We Say is a learned and excellently sane book, and any reader will learn a great deal from it about the contested ideas at the heart of American democracy
Sam Leith, Daily Telegraph (5 stars)
From Frederick Douglass to Obama, Ben Rhodes shares the speeches that explain America
Guardian
Rhodes is an excellent guide through the mechanics of political speechmaking. There can be few better placed to bring to live the revisions, anxieties and historical burdens condensed into a few pages of spoken language
Times Literary Supplement
Rhodes has mastered the history he covers
New Statesman
