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All We Say
  • Published: 28 May 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529963960
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 432
Categories:

All We Say

A History of the United States in Fifteen Speeches

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
15 Sept 2026
Hardback
28 June 2026
EBook
28 May 2026
Audiobook
28 May 2026
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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.
  • Published: 28 May 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529963960
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 432
Categories:

About the author

Ben Rhodes

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.
BR

Also by Ben Rhodes

The World As It Is
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Praise for All We Say

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