The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood
BUY IT NEW
- $17.95 List price$14.36 Online price$12.92 Member price(Save 28%)Limited Time Offer! Everyone receives the Member Price on books.
See Details
Reserve it at BN.com & pick it up in 60 minutes at your local store.
Enter a zip code
(Paperback - Reprinted Edition)
- Pub. Date: March 1993
- 464pp
- Sales Rank: 30,468
Buy it Used: 24 copies from $3.19 See All Available
Customers who bought this also bought
Product Details
- Pub. Date: March 1993
- Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Format: Paperback, 464pp
- Sales Rank: 30,468
- Series: Vintage Series
- ISBN-13: 9780679736882
- ISBN: 0679736883
- Edition Number: 2
- Edition Description: Reprinted Edition
Synopsis
In a grand and immemsely readable synthesis of historical, political, cultural, and economic analysis, a prize-winning historian depicts much more than a break with England. He gives readers a revolution that transformed an almost feudal society into a democratic one, whose emerging realities sometimes baffled and disappointed its founding fathers.
Annotation
In a grand and immemsely readable synthesis of historical, political, cultural, and economic analysis, a prize-winning historian depicts much more than a break with England. He gives readers a revolution that transformed an almost feudal society into a democratic one, whose emerging realities sometimes baffled and disappointed its founding fathers.
Publishers Weekly
The gifted Wood offers a fresh take on the formative years of the United States, explaining the astonishing transformation of disparate, quarreling colonies into a bustling, unruly republic of egalitarian-minded citizens. (Mar.)
More Reviews and RecommendationsCustomer Reviews
- Reader Rating:
- Ratings: 6Reviews: 6
- See All Reviews
Helped balance my teachingby Roweking
Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings
August 26, 2009: I ask my students if the American Revolution was radical or as their textbook (American Pageant) puts it accelerated evolution. Mr. Wood puts forth a great argument as to the radicalism - I have passed much of this on.
Mixed Bagby GeoffSmock
Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings
January 15, 2009:
This book was like a bag of trail mix; there were some good components (M&Ms) and some bad ones (raisins). The breadth of it is impressive (if not a little excessive) and you can tell that Professor Wood has studied his subject for decades. Agree with him or not, his analysis and interpretation is provocative.
He errs in a few ways though. The point of the book is to stress the complete break with English society and culture that the Revolution brought about (the source of its "radicalism"), but in so doing he exaggerates a bit. For as much as the post-bellum American society was different than Great Britain's, there was still much in common between the two Anglo cultures. As Professor Wood himself touches upon, Americans inherited and modeled their opposition to tyranny and their belief in natural rights from the English tradition of the Magna Carta, English Civil War, and Glorious Revolution. In fact, the Revolution wasn't so much a "clean break" as another notch in the line of historical progression from absolute monarchy to republican and/or democratic government. The Revolution was not a total departure from the Anglo tradition and to write of it without placing it in historical context is no less a folly than examining the French Revolution without addressing the effect the American one had on it.
What Americans did change in the Revolution they recalibrated, not so much changing the what but the how. Instead of an inherited aristocracy, they sought a ?natural? one, where the superlative talent would rise to the top and assume positions of leadership. Elite standing would be determined by merit, not the fortune of birth.
The book runs a bit longer than it should, so if you?re pressed for time read Sections 5-7, which excellently examine the colonial society Americans were trying to preserve and the European society they were trying to avoid.
I Also Recommend: Revolutionary Characters, Founding Brothers, The American Revolution.
Loading...