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| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The American Revolution Gordon S. Wood, 2002-03-05 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “An elegant synthesis done by the leading scholar in the field, which nicely integrates the work on the American Revolution over the last three decades but never loses contact with the older, classic questions that we have been arguing about for over two hundred years.”—Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers A magnificent account of the revolution in arms and consciousness that gave birth to the American republic. When Abraham Lincoln sought to define the significance of the United States, he naturally looked back to the American Revolution. He knew that the Revolution not only had legally created the United States, but also had produced all of the great hopes and values of the American people. Our noblest ideals and aspirations-our commitments to freedom, constitutionalism, the well-being of ordinary people, and equality-came out of the Revolutionary era. Lincoln saw as well that the Revolution had convinced Americans that they were a special people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty. The Revolution, in short, gave birth to whatever sense of nationhood and national purpose Americans have had. No doubt the story is a dramatic one: Thirteen insignificant colonies three thousand miles from the centers of Western civilization fought off British rule to become, in fewer than three decades, a huge, sprawling, rambunctious republic of nearly four million citizens. But the history of the American Revolution, like the history of the nation as a whole, ought not to be viewed simply as a story of right and wrong from which moral lessons are to be drawn. It is a complicated and at times ironic story that needs to be explained and understood, not blindly celebrated or condemned. How did this great revolution come about? What was its character? What were its consequences? These are the questions this short history seeks to answer. That it succeeds in such a profound and enthralling way is a tribute to Gordon Wood’s mastery of his subject, and of the historian’s craft. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Power and Liberty Gordon S. Wood, 2021 Written by one of early America's most eminent historians, this book masterfully discusses the debates over constitutionalism that took place in the Revolutionary era. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Idea of America Gordon S. Wood, 2011-05-12 The preeminent historian of the American Revolution explains why it remains the most significant event in our history. More than almost any other nation in the world, the United States began as an idea. For this reason, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood believes that the American Revolution is the most important event in our history, bar none. Since American identity is so fluid and not based on any universally shared heritage, we have had to continually return to our nation's founding to understand who we are. In The Idea of America, Wood reflects on the birth of American nationhood and explains why the revolution remains so essential. In a series of elegant and illuminating essays, Wood explores the ideological origins of the revolution-from ancient Rome to the European Enlightenment-and the founders' attempts to forge an American democracy. As Wood reveals, while the founders hoped to create a virtuous republic of yeoman farmers and uninterested leaders, they instead gave birth to a sprawling, licentious, and materialistic popular democracy. Wood also traces the origins of American exceptionalism to this period, revealing how the revolutionary generation, despite living in a distant, sparsely populated country, believed itself to be the most enlightened people on earth. The revolution gave Americans their messianic sense of purpose-and perhaps our continued propensity to promote democracy around the world-because the founders believed their colonial rebellion had universal significance for oppressed peoples everywhere. Yet what may seem like audacity in retrospect reflected the fact that in the eighteenth century republicanism was a truly radical ideology-as radical as Marxism would be in the nineteenth-and one that indeed inspired revolutionaries the world over. Today there exists what Wood calls a terrifying gap between us and the founders, such that it requires almost an act of imagination to fully recapture their era. Because we now take our democracy for granted, it is nearly impossible for us to appreciate how deeply the founders feared their grand experiment in liberty could evolve into monarchy or dissolve into licentiousness. Gracefully written and filled with insight, The Idea of America helps us to recapture the fears and hopes of the revolutionary generation and its attempts to translate those ideals into a working democracy. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash Broadway musical Hamilton has sparked new interest in the Revolutionary War and the Founding Fathers. In addition to Alexander Hamilton, the production also features George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Aaron Burr, Lafayette, and many more. Look for Gordon's new book, Friends Divided. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Radicalism of the American Revolution Gordon S. Wood, 2011-08-24 In a grand and immemsely readable synthesis of historical, political, cultural, and economic analysis, a prize-winning historian describes the events that made the American Revolution. Gordon S. Wood depicts a revolution that was about much more than a break from England, rather it transformed an almost feudal society into a democratic one, whose emerging realities sometimes baffled and disappointed its founding fathers. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Radicalism of the American Revolution Gordon S. Wood, 1992 Senior co-administrator of the Norcoast Salmon Research Facility, Dr. Mackenzie Connor - Mac to her friends and colleagues - was a biologist who had wanted nothing more out of life than to study the spawning habits of salmon. But that was before she met Brymn, the first member of the Dhryn race ever to set foot on Earth. And it was before Base was attacked, and Mac's friend and fellow scientist Dr. Emily Mamani was kidnapped by the mysterious race known as the Ro. From that moment on everything changed for Mac, for Emily, for Brymn, for the human race, and for all the many member races of the Interspecies Union. Now, with the alien Dhryn following an instinct-driven migratory path through the inhabited spaceways - bringing about the annihilation of sentient races who have the misfortune to lie along the star trail they are following - time is running out not only for the human race but for all life forms. And only Mac and her disparate band of researchers - drawn from many of the races that are members of the Interspecies Union - stand any chance of solving the deadly puzzle of the Dhryn and the equally enigmatic Ro.--BOOK JACKET. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Revolutionary Characters Gordon S. Wood, 2006-05-18 In this brilliantly illuminating group portrait of the men who came to be known as the Founding Fathers, the incomparable Gordon Wood has written a book that seriously asks, What made these men great? and shows us, among many other things, just how much character did in fact matter. The life of each—Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Paine—is presented individually as well as collectively, but the thread that binds these portraits together is the idea of character as a lived reality. They were members of the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made men who understood that the arc of lives, as of nations, is one of moral progress. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The American Revolution Gordon S. Wood, 2003-08-19 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “An elegant synthesis done by the leading scholar in the field, which nicely integrates the work on the American Revolution over the last three decades but never loses contact with the older, classic questions that we have been arguing about for over two hundred years.”—Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers A magnificent account of the revolution in arms and consciousness that gave birth to the American republic. When Abraham Lincoln sought to define the significance of the United States, he naturally looked back to the American Revolution. He knew that the Revolution not only had legally created the United States, but also had produced all of the great hopes and values of the American people. Our noblest ideals and aspirations-our commitments to freedom, constitutionalism, the well-being of ordinary people, and equality-came out of the Revolutionary era. Lincoln saw as well that the Revolution had convinced Americans that they were a special people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty. The Revolution, in short, gave birth to whatever sense of nationhood and national purpose Americans have had. No doubt the story is a dramatic one: Thirteen insignificant colonies three thousand miles from the centers of Western civilization fought off British rule to become, in fewer than three decades, a huge, sprawling, rambunctious republic of nearly four million citizens. But the history of the American Revolution, like the history of the nation as a whole, ought not to be viewed simply as a story of right and wrong from which moral lessons are to be drawn. It is a complicated and at times ironic story that needs to be explained and understood, not blindly celebrated or condemned. How did this great revolution come about? What was its character? What were its consequences? These are the questions this short history seeks to answer. That it succeeds in such a profound and enthralling way is a tribute to Gordon Wood’s mastery of his subject, and of the historian’s craft. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Representation in the American Revolution Gordon S. Wood, 2008 From one of America's most celebrated historians, the Pulitzer Prize winner Gordon S. Wood, comes an early work whose relevance is undiminished. Originally published in 1969, now revised and with a new preface, Representation in the American Revolution examines the ways in which a government is created and how, in the face of great difficulties as well as great possibilities, its citizens are represented. Written immediately after the completion of Wood's Bancroft Award-winning The Creation of the American Republic, this book elaborates on issues also explored in that landmark work. The subject is one that lies at the heart of any discussion of democracy. Establishing a proper method of representation was a goal and measure of the American Revolution, or as Thomas Jefferson said in 1776, the whole object of the present controversy. A fine example of political and constitutional history, this timeless little book will serve as an excellent introduction to issues of representation for students in the fields of political science, as well as history and law. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Radicalism of the American Revolution Gordon S. Wood, 1993-03-02 In a grand and immemsely readable synthesis of historical, political, cultural, and economic analysis, a prize-winning historian describes the events that made the American Revolution. Gordon S. Wood depicts a revolution that was about much more than a break from England, rather it transformed an almost feudal society into a democratic one, whose emerging realities sometimes baffled and disappointed its founding fathers. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin Gordon S. Wood, 2005-05-31 “I cannot remember ever reading a work of history and biography that is quite so fluent, so perfectly composed and balanced . . .” —The New York Sun “Exceptionally rich perspective on one of the most accomplished, complex, and unpredictable Americans of his own time or any other.” —The Washington Post Book World From the most respected chronicler of the early days of the Republic—and winner of both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes—comes a landmark work that rescues Benjamin Franklin from a mythology that has blinded generations of Americans to the man he really was and makes sense of aspects of his life and career that would have otherwise remained mysterious. In place of the genial polymath, self-improver, and quintessential American, Gordon S. Wood reveals a figure much more ambiguous and complex—and much more interesting. Charting the passage of Franklin’s life and reputation from relative popular indifference (his death, while the occasion for mass mourning in France, was widely ignored in America) to posthumous glory, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin sheds invaluable light on the emergence of our country’s idea of itself. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 Gordon S. Wood, 2011-02-01 One of the half dozen most important books ever written about the American Revolution.--New York Times Book Review During the nearly two decades since its publication, this book has set the pace, furnished benchmarks, and afforded targets for many subsequent studies. If ever a work of history merited the appellation 'modern classic,' this is surely one.--William and Mary Quarterly [A] brilliant and sweeping interpretation of political culture in the Revolutionary generation.--New England Quarterly This is an admirable, thoughtful, and penetrating study of one of the most important chapters in American history.--Wesley Frank Craven |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Empire of Liberty Gordon S. Wood, 2009-10-28 The Oxford History of the United States is by far the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, two New York Times bestsellers, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. Now, in the newest volume in the series, one of America's most esteemed historians, Gordon S. Wood, offers a brilliant account of the early American Republic, ranging from 1789 and the beginning of the national government to the end of the War of 1812. As Wood reveals, the period was marked by tumultuous change in all aspects of American life--in politics, society, economy, and culture. The men who founded the new government had high hopes for the future, but few of their hopes and dreams worked out quite as they expected. They hated political parties but parties nonetheless emerged. Some wanted the United States to become a great fiscal-military state like those of Britain and France; others wanted the country to remain a rural agricultural state very different from the European states. Instead, by 1815 the United States became something neither group anticipated. Many leaders expected American culture to flourish and surpass that of Europe; instead it became popularized and vulgarized. The leaders also hope to see the end of slavery; instead, despite the release of many slaves and the end of slavery in the North, slavery was stronger in 1815 than it had been in 1789. Many wanted to avoid entanglements with Europe, but instead the country became involved in Europe's wars and ended up waging another war with the former mother country. Still, with a new generation emerging by 1815, most Americans were confident and optimistic about the future of their country. Named a New York Times Notable Book, Empire of Liberty offers a marvelous account of this pivotal era when America took its first unsteady steps as a new and rapidly expanding nation. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Friends Divided Gordon S. Wood, 2017 A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2017 From the great historian of the American Revolution, New York Times-bestselling and Pulitzer-winning Gordon Wood, comes a majestic dual biography of two of America's most enduringly fascinating figures, whose partnership helped birth a nation, and whose subsequent falling out did much to fix its course. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds, or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough faith in the innate goodness of his fellow man to be democracy's champion, was an aristocratic Southern slaveowner, while Adams, the overachiever from New England's rising middling classes, painfully aware he was no aristocrat, was a skeptic about popular rule and a defender of a more elitist view of government. They worked closely in the crucible of revolution, crafting the Declaration of Independence and leading, with Franklin, the diplomatic effort that brought France into the fight. But ultimately, their profound differences would lead to a fundamental crisis, in their friendship and in the nation writ large, as they became the figureheads of two entirely new forces, the first American political parties. It was a bitter breach, lasting through the presidential administrations of both men, and beyond. But late in life, something remarkable happened: these two men were nudged into reconciliation. What started as a grudging trickle of correspondence became a great flood, and a friendship was rekindled, over the course of hundreds of letters. In their final years they were the last surviving founding fathers and cherished their role in this mighty young republic as it approached the half century mark in 1826. At last, on the afternoon of July 4th, 50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration, Adams let out a sigh and said, At least Jefferson still lives. He died soon thereafter. In fact, a few hours earlier on that same day, far to the south in his home in Monticello, Jefferson died as well. Arguably no relationship in this country's history carries as much freight as that of John Adams of Massachusetts and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Gordon Wood has more than done justice to these entwined lives and their meaning; he has written a magnificent new addition to America's collective story. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Liberty Is Sweet Woody Holton, 2021-10-19 A “deeply researched and bracing retelling” (Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian) of the American Revolution, showing how the Founders were influenced by overlooked Americans—women, Native Americans, African Americans, and religious dissenters. Using more than a thousand eyewitness records, Liberty Is Sweet is a “spirited account” (Gordon S. Wood, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution) that explores countless connections between the Patriots of 1776 and other Americans whose passion for freedom often brought them into conflict with the Founding Fathers. “It is all one story,” prizewinning historian Woody Holton writes. Holton describes the origins and crucial battles of the Revolution from Lexington and Concord to the British surrender at Yorktown, always focusing on marginalized Americans—enslaved Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, women, and dissenters—and on overlooked factors such as weather, North America’s unique geography, chance, misperception, attempts to manipulate public opinion, and (most of all) disease. Thousands of enslaved Americans exploited the chaos of war to obtain their own freedom, while others were given away as enlistment bounties to whites. Women provided material support for the troops, sewing clothes for soldiers and in some cases taking part in the fighting. Both sides courted native people and mimicked their tactics. Liberty Is Sweet is a “must-read book for understanding the founding of our nation” (Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin), from its origins on the frontiers and in the Atlantic ports to the creation of the Constitution. Offering surprises at every turn—for example, Holton makes a convincing case that Britain never had a chance of winning the war—this majestic history revivifies a story we thought we already knew. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Purpose of the Past Gordon S. Wood, 2008-03-13 An erudite scholar and an elegant writer, Gordon S. Wood has won both numerous awards and a broad readership since the 1969 publication of his widely acclaimed The Creation of the American Republic. With The Purpose of the Past, Wood has essentially created a history of American history, assessing the current state of history vis-à-vis the work of some of its most important scholars-doling out praise and scorn with equal measure. In this wise, passionate defense of history's ongoing necessity, Wood argues that we cannot make intelligent decisions about the future without understanding our past. Wood offers a master's insight into what history-at its best-can be and reflects on its evolving and essential role in our culture. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Representation in the American Revolution Gordon S. Wood, 1969 From one of America's most celebrated historians, the Pulitzer Prize winner Gordon S. Wood, comes an early work whose relevance is undiminished. Originally published in 1969, now revised and with a new preface, Representation in the American Revolution examines the ways in which a government is created and how, in the face of great difficulties as well as great possibilities, its citizens are represented. Written immediately after the completion of Wood's Bancroft Award-winning The Creation of the American Republic, this book elaborates on issues also explored in that landmark work. The subject is one that lies at the heart of any discussion of democracy. Establishing a proper method of representation was a goal and measure of the American Revolution, or as Thomas Jefferson said in 1776, the whole object of the present controversy. A fine example of political and constitutional history, this timeless little book will serve as an excellent introduction to issues of representation for students in the fields of political science, as well as history and law. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Unknown American Revolution Gary B. Nash, 2006-05-30 In this audacious recasting of the American Revolution, distinguished historian Gary Nash offers a profound new way of thinking about the struggle to create this country, introducing readers to a coalition of patriots from all classes and races of American society. From millennialist preachers to enslaved Africans, disgruntled women to aggrieved Indians, the people so vividly portrayed in this book did not all agree or succeed, but during the exhilarating and messy years of this country's birth, they laid down ideas that have become part of our inheritance and ideals toward which we still strive today. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 Alan Taylor, 2016-09-06 “Excellent . . . deserves high praise. Mr. Taylor conveys this sprawling continental history with economy, clarity, and vividness.”—Brendan Simms, Wall Street Journal The American Revolution is often portrayed as a high-minded, orderly event whose capstone, the Constitution, provided the nation its democratic framework. Alan Taylor, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, gives us a different creation story in this magisterial history. The American Revolution builds like a ground fire overspreading Britain’s colonies, fueled by local conditions and resistant to control. Emerging from the continental rivalries of European empires and their native allies, the revolution pivoted on western expansion as well as seaboard resistance to British taxes. When war erupted, Patriot crowds harassed Loyalists and nonpartisans into compliance with their cause. The war exploded in set battles like Saratoga and Yorktown and spread through continuing frontier violence. The discord smoldering within the fragile new nation called forth a movement to concentrate power through a Federal Constitution. Assuming the mantle of “We the People,” the advocates of national power ratified the new frame of government. But it was Jefferson’s expansive “empire of liberty” that carried the revolution forward, propelling white settlement and slavery west, preparing the ground for a new conflagration. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Will of the People T. H. Breen, 2019-09-17 “Important and lucidly written...The American Revolution involved not simply the wisdom of a few great men but the passions, fears, and religiosity of ordinary people.” —Gordon S. Wood In this boldly innovative work, T. H. Breen spotlights a crucial missing piece in the stories we tell about the American Revolution. From New Hampshire to Georgia, it was ordinary people who became the face of resistance. Without them the Revolution would have failed. They sustained the commitment to independence when victory seemed in doubt and chose law over vengeance when their communities teetered on the brink of anarchy. The Will of the People offers a vivid account of how, across the thirteen colonies, men and women negotiated the revolutionary experience, accepting huge personal sacrifice, setting up daring experiments in self-government, and going to extraordinary lengths to preserve the rule of law. After the war they avoided the violence and extremism that have compromised so many other revolutions since. A masterful storyteller, Breen recovers the forgotten history of our nation’s true founders. “The American Revolution was made not just on the battlefields or in the minds of intellectuals, Breen argues in this elegant and persuasive work. Communities of ordinary men and women—farmers, workers, and artisans who kept the revolutionary faith until victory was achieved—were essential to the effort.” —Annette Gordon-Reed “Breen traces the many ways in which exercising authority made local committees pragmatic...acting as a brake on the kind of violent excess into which revolutions so easily devolve.” —Wall Street Journal |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Religion and the American Revolution Katherine Carté, 2021-04-20 For most of the eighteenth century, British protestantism was driven neither by the primacy of denominations nor by fundamental discord between them. Instead, it thrived as part of a complex transatlantic system that bound religious institutions to imperial politics. As Katherine Carte argues, British imperial protestantism proved remarkably effective in advancing both the interests of empire and the cause of religion until the war for American independence disrupted it. That Revolution forced a reassessment of the role of religion in public life on both sides of the Atlantic. Religious communities struggled to reorganize within and across new national borders. Religious leaders recalibrated their relationships to government. If these shifts were more pronounced in the United States than in Britain, the loss of a shared system nonetheless mattered to both nations. Sweeping and explicitly transatlantic, Religion and the American Revolution demonstrates that if religion helped set the terms through which Anglo-Americans encountered the imperial crisis and the violence of war, it likewise set the terms through which both nations could imagine the possibilities of a new world. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Making of the Constitution Gordon S. Wood, 1987 CONTENTS: Lecture 1: Biography: The Human Heart of History; Lecture 2: How the Trumpet Came to Sound: The Process and Perils of Writing a Biography of Martin Luther King Jr. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: America's Revolutionary Mind C. Bradley Thompson, 2019-11-05 America's Revolutionary Mind is the first major reinterpretation of the American Revolution since the publication of Bernard Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution and Gordon S. Wood's The Creation of the American Republic. The purpose of this book is twofold: first, to elucidate the logic, principles, and significance of the Declaration of Independence as the embodiment of the American mind; and, second, to shed light on what John Adams once called the real American Revolution; that is, the moral revolution that occurred in the minds of the people in the fifteen years before 1776. The Declaration is used here as an ideological road map by which to chart the intellectual and moral terrain traveled by American Revolutionaries as they searched for new moral principles to deal with the changed political circumstances of the 1760s and early 1770s. This volume identifies and analyzes the modes of reasoning, the patterns of thought, and the new moral and political principles that served American Revolutionaries first in their intellectual battle with Great Britain before 1776 and then in their attempt to create new Revolutionary societies after 1776. The book reconstructs what amounts to a near-unified system of thought—what Thomas Jefferson called an “American mind” or what I call “America’s Revolutionary mind.” This American mind was, I argue, united in its fealty to a common philosophy that was expressed in the Declaration and launched with the words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Great Demarcation Rafe Blaufarb, 2016 The French Revolution remade the system of property-holding that had existed in France before 1789. This work engages with this historical process not from an economic or social perspective, but from the perspective of the laws and institutions of property. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Whites of Their Eyes Jill Lepore, 2011-08-08 From acclaimed bestselling historian Jill Lepore, the story of the American historical mythology embraced by the far right Americans have always put the past to political ends. The Union laid claim to the Revolution—so did the Confederacy. Civil rights leaders said they were the true sons of liberty—so did Southern segregationists. This book tells the story of the centuries-long struggle over the meaning of the nation's founding, including the battle waged by the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and evangelical Christians to take back America. Jill Lepore, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, offers a careful and concerned look at American history according to the far right, from the rant heard round the world, which launched the Tea Party, to the Texas School Board's adoption of a social-studies curriculum that teaches that the United States was established as a Christian nation. Along the way, she provides rare insight into the eighteenth-century struggle for independencea history of the Revolution, from the archives. Lepore traces the roots of the far right's reactionary history to the bicentennial in the 1970s, when no one could agree on what story a divided nation should tell about its unruly beginnings. Behind the Tea Party's Revolution, she argues, lies a nostalgic and even heartbreaking yearning for an imagined past—a time less troubled by ambiguity, strife, and uncertainty—a yearning for an America that never was. The Whites of Their Eyes reveals that the far right has embraced a narrative about America's founding that is not only a fable but is also, finally, a variety of fundamentalism—anti-intellectual, antihistorical, and dangerously antipluralist. In a new afterword, Lepore addresses both the recent shift in Tea Party rhetoric from the Revolution to the Constitution and the diminished role of scholars as political commentators over the last half century of public debate. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Imagined Histories Anthony Molho, Gordon S. Wood, 1998 This collection of essays by twenty-one distinguished American historians reflects on a peculiarly American way of imagining the past. At a time when history-writing has changed dramatically, the authors discuss the birth and evolution of historiography in this country, from its origins in the late nineteenth century through its present, more cosmopolitan character. In the book's first part, concerning recent historiography, are chapters on exceptionalism, gender, economic history, social theory, race, and immigration and multiculturalism. Authors are Daniel Rodgers, Linda Kerber, Naomi Lamoreaux, Dorothy Ross, Thomas Holt, and Philip Gleason. The three American centuries are discussed in the second part, with chapters by Gordon Wood, George Fredrickson, and James Patterson. The third part is a chronological survey of non-American histories, including that of Western civilization, ancient history, the middle ages, early modern and modern Europe, Russia, and Asia. Contributors are Eugen Weber, Richard Saller, Gabrielle Spiegel, Anthony Molho, Philip Benedict, Richard Kagan, Keith Baker, Joseph Zizak, Volker Berghahn, Charles Maier, Martin Malia, and Carol Gluck. Together, these scholars reveal the unique perspective American historians have brought to the past of their own nation as well as that of the world. Formerly writing from a conviction that America had a singular destiny, American historians have gradually come to share viewpoints of historians in other countries about which they write. The result is the virtual disappearance of what was a distinctive American voice. That voice is the subject of this book. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Common Cause Robert G. Parkinson, 2016-05-18 When the Revolutionary War began, the odds of a united, continental effort to resist the British seemed nearly impossible. Few on either side of the Atlantic expected thirteen colonies to stick together in a war against their cultural cousins. In this pathbreaking book, Robert Parkinson argues that to unify the patriot side, political and communications leaders linked British tyranny to colonial prejudices, stereotypes, and fears about insurrectionary slaves and violent Indians. Manipulating newspaper networks, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and their fellow agitators broadcast stories of British agents inciting African Americans and Indians to take up arms against the American rebellion. Using rhetoric like domestic insurrectionists and merciless savages, the founding fathers rallied the people around a common enemy and made racial prejudice a cornerstone of the new Republic. In a fresh reading of the founding moment, Parkinson demonstrates the dual projection of the common cause. Patriots through both an ideological appeal to popular rights and a wartime movement against a host of British-recruited slaves and Indians forged a racialized, exclusionary model of American citizenship. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution Bernard Bailyn, 1976 |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Ireland and America Patrick Griffin, Francis D. Cogliano, 2021-07-07 Looking at America through the Irish prism and employing a comparative approach, leading and emerging scholars of early American and Atlantic history interrogate anew the relationship between imperial reform and revolution in Ireland and America, offering fascinating insights into the imperial whole of which both places were a part. Revolution would eventually stem from the ways the Irish and Americans looked to each other to make sense of imperial crisis wrought by reform, only to ultimately create two expanding empires in the nineteenth century in which the Irish would play critical roles. Contributors Rachel Banke, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy * T. H. Breen, University of Vermont * Trevor Burnard, University of Hull * Nicholas Canny, National University of Ireland, Galway * Christa Dierksheide, University of Virginia * Matthew P. Dziennik, United States Naval Academy * S. Max Edelson, University of Virginia * Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University * Eliga Gould, University of New Hampshire * Robert G. Ingram, Ohio University * Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia * Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy, International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello * Jessica Choppin Roney, Temple University * Gordon S. Wood, Brown University |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: 1775 Kevin Phillips, 2013-09-24 A groundbreaking account of the American Revolution—from the bestselling author of American Dynasty In this major new work, iconoclastic historian and political chronicler Kevin Phillips upends the conventional reading of the American Revolution by debunking the myth that 1776 was the struggle’s watershed year. Focusing on the great battles and events of 1775, Phillips surveys the political climate, economic structures, and military preparations of the crucial year that was the harbinger of revolution, tackling the eighteenth century with the same skill and perception he has shown in analyzing contemporary politics and economics. The result is a dramatic account brimming with original insights about the country we eventually became. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1760-1791 Richard D. Brown, 2000 DOCUMENTS AND ESSAYS OF MAJOR PROBLEMS IN COLONIAL AMERICA. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: 1620 Peter W. Wood, 2020-11-10 Was America founded on the auction block in Jamestown in 1619 or aboard the Mayflower in 1620? The controversy erupted in August 2019 when the New York Times announced its 1619 Project. The Times set to transform history by asserting that all the laws, material gains, and cultural achievements of Americans are rooted in the exploitation of African-Americans. Historians have pushed back, saying that the 1619 Project conjures a false narrative out of racial grievance. This book sums up what the critics have said and argues that the traditional starting point for the American story--the signing of the Mayflower Compact aboard ship before the Pilgrims set foot in the Massachusetts wilderness--is right. A nation as complex as ours, of course, has many starting points, including the Declaration of Independence in 1776. But if we want to understand where the quintessential ideas of self-government and ordered liberty came from, the deliberate actions of the Mayflower immigrants in 1620 count much more than the near accidental arrival in Virginia fifteen months earlier of a Portuguese slave ship commandeered by English pirates. Schools across the country have already adopted The Times' radical revision of history as part of their curricula. The stakes are high. Should children be taught that our nation is, to its bone, a 400-year-old system of racist oppression? Or should we teach children that what has always made America exceptional is its pursuit of liberty and justice for all? |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Civil War of 1812 Alan Taylor, 2011-10-04 In the early nineteenth century, Britons and Americans renewed their struggle over the legacy of the American Revolution, leading to a second confrontation that redefined North America. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor’s vivid narrative tells the riveting story of the soldiers, immigrants, settlers, and Indians who fought to determine the fate of a continent. Would revolutionary republicanism sweep the British from Canada? Or would the British contain, divide, and ruin the shaky republic? In a world of double identities, slippery allegiances, and porous boundaries, the leaders of the republic and of the empire struggled to control their own diverse peoples. The border divided Americans—former Loyalists and Patriots—who fought on both sides in the new war, as did native peoples defending their homelands. And dissident Americans flirted with secession while aiding the British as smugglers and spies. During the war, both sides struggled to sustain armies in a northern land of immense forests, vast lakes, and stark seasonal swings in the weather. After fighting each other to a standstill, the Americans and the British concluded that they could safely share the continent along a border that favored the United States at the expense of Canadians and Indians. Moving beyond national histories to examine the lives of common men and women, The Civil War of 1812 reveals an often brutal (sometimes comic) war and illuminates the tangled origins of the United States and Canada. Moving beyond national histories to examine the lives of common men and women, The Civil War of 1812 reveals an often brutal (sometimes comic) war and illuminates the tangled origins of the United States and Canada. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Founding Brothers Joseph J. Ellis, 2002-02-05 PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A landmark work of history explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals—Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison—confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for our nation. “A splendid book—humane, learned, written with flair and radiant with a calm intelligence and wit.” —The New York Times Book Review The United States was more a fragile hope than a reality in 1790. During the decade that followed, the Founding Fathers—re-examined here as Founding Brothers—combined the ideals of the Declaration of Independence with the content of the Constitution to create the practical workings of our government. Through an analysis of six fascinating episodes—Hamilton and Burr’s deadly duel, Washington’s precedent-setting Farewell Address, Adams’ administration and political partnership with his wife, the debate about where to place the capital, Franklin’s attempt to force Congress to confront the issue of slavery and Madison’s attempts to block him, and Jefferson and Adams’ famous correspondence—Founding Brothers brings to life the vital issues and personalities from the most important decade in our nation’s history. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Revolutionary Characters Gordon S. Wood, 2006 In 10 essays from previously published articles, the author presents miniature portraits of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and others known as the founding fathers. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Farmers and Fishermen Daniel Vickers, 2014-01-01 Daniel Vickers examines the shifting labor strategies used by colonists as New England evolved from a string of frontier settlements to a mature society on the brink of industrialization. Lacking a means to purchase slaves or hire help, seventeenth-century settlers adapted the labor systems of Europe to cope with the shortages of capital and workers they encountered on the edge of the wilderness. As their world developed, changes in labor arrangements paved the way for the economic transformations of the nineteenth century. By reconstructing the work experiences of thousands of farmers and fishermen in eastern Massachusetts, Vickers identifies who worked for whom and under what terms. Seventeenth-century farmers, for example, maintained patriarchal control over their sons largely to assure themselves of a labor force. The first generation of fish merchants relied on a system of clientage that bound poor fishermen to deliver their hauls in exchange for goods. Toward the end of the colonial period, land scarcity forced farmers and fishermen to search for ways to support themselves through wage employment and home manufacture. Out of these adjustments, says Vickers, emerged a labor market sufficient for industrialization. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Captives of Liberty T. Cole Jones, 2019-10-18 Contrary to popular belief, the American Revolutionary War was not a limited and restrained struggle for political self-determination. From the onset of hostilities, British authorities viewed their American foes as traitors to be punished, and British abuse of American prisoners, both tacitly condoned and at times officially sanctioned, proliferated. Meanwhile, more than seventeen thousand British and allied soldiers fell into American hands during the Revolution. For a fledgling nation that could barely afford to keep an army in the field, the issue of how to manage prisoners of war was daunting. Captives of Liberty examines how America's founding generation grappled with the problems posed by prisoners of war, and how this influenced the wider social and political legacies of the Revolution. When the struggle began, according to T. Cole Jones, revolutionary leadership strove to conduct the war according to the prevailing European customs of military conduct, which emphasized restricting violence to the battlefield and treating prisoners humanely. However, this vision of restrained war did not last long. As the British denied customary protections to their American captives, the revolutionary leadership wasted no time in capitalizing on the prisoners' ordeals for propagandistic purposes. Enraged, ordinary Americans began to demand vengeance, and they viewed British soldiers and their German and Native American auxiliaries as appropriate targets. This cycle of violence spiraled out of control, transforming the struggle for colonial independence into a revolutionary war. In illuminating this history, Jones contends that the violence of the Revolutionary War had a profound impact on the character and consequences of the American Revolution. Captives of Liberty not only provides the first comprehensive analysis of revolutionary American treatment of enemy prisoners but also reveals the relationship between America's political revolution and the war waged to secure it. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Royalist Revolution Eric Nelson, 2014-10-06 Winner of the Society of the Cincinnati History Prize, Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey Finalist, George Washington Prize A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2015 Generations of students have been taught that the American Revolution was a revolt against royal tyranny. In this revisionist account, Eric Nelson argues that a great many of our “founding fathers” saw themselves as rebels against the British Parliament, not the Crown. The Royalist Revolution interprets the patriot campaign of the 1770s as an insurrection in favor of royal power—driven by the conviction that the Lords and Commons had usurped the just prerogatives of the monarch. “The Royalist Revolution is a thought-provoking book, and Nelson is to be commended for reviving discussion of the complex ideology of the American Revolution. He reminds us that there was a spectrum of opinion even among the most ardent patriots and a deep British influence on the political institutions of the new country.” —Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Wall Street Journal “A scrupulous archaeology of American revolutionary thought.” —Thomas Meaney, The Nation “A powerful double-barrelled challenge to historiographical orthodoxy.” —Colin Kidd, London Review of Books “[A] brilliant and provocative analysis of the American Revolution.” —John Brewer, New York Review of Books |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: The Best Poor Man's Country James T. Lemon, 1972 This book deserves careful attention... Lemon is a professional geographer, but historians will read his book as an imaginative approach to social history... A distinguished and important book. -- American Historical Review |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: A Revolution in Favor of Government Max M. Edling, 2008-07-08 What were the intentions of the Founders? Was the American constitution designed to protect individual rights? To limit the powers of government? To curb the excesses of democracy? Or to create a robust democratic nation-state? These questions echo through today's most heated legal and political debates. In this powerful new interpretation of America's origins, Max Edling argues that the Federalists were primarily concerned with building a government that could act vigorously in defense of American interests. The Constitution transferred the powers of war making and resource extraction from the states to the national government thereby creating a nation-state invested with all the important powers of Europe's eighteenth-century fiscal-military states. A strong centralized government, however, challenged the American people's deeply ingrained distrust of unduly concentrated authority. To secure the Constitution's adoption the Federalists had to accommodate the formation of a powerful national government to the strong current of anti-statism in the American political tradition. They did so by designing a government that would be powerful in times of crisis, but which would make only limited demands on the citizenry and have a sharply restricted presence in society. The Constitution promised the American people the benefit of government without its costs. Taking advantage of a newly published letterpress edition of the constitutional debates, A Revolution in Favor of Government recovers a neglected strand of the Federalist argument, making a persuasive case for rethinking the formation of the federal American state. |
| the american revolution a history gordon s wood: Considerations on the Principal Events of the French Revolution Madame de Staël (Anne-Louise-Germaine), 1818 |
The American Revolution A History Gordon S Wood
The American Revolution: A History (Modern Library Chronicles) Jan 22, 2002 · Gordon S. Wood's The American Revolution, part of the Modern Library Chronicles series, is an erudite, …
Gordon S Wood The American Revolution A History Full PDF
Gordon S. Wood’s The American Revolution: A History provides a compelling and insightful perspective on this formative period in American history. By focusing on the societal and …
Jack Rakove, Stanford University - Archive.org
“In his splendid new book Gordon Wood rescues the American Revolution fro m those who would see it as a conse rvative or backward-looking event … In a rapidly changing world, Wood …
The American Revolution - JSTOR
Among the monographs, Gordon Wood's The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 received the most votes, with works by Bernard Bailyn, Pauline Maier, and Charles Royster …
The American Revolution A History Gordon S Wood ; Gordon S.
American nationhood and explains why the American Revolution remains so essential. For Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood, the American Revolution is the most …
The Social Origins of American Revolutionary Ideology - JSTOR
Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, William and Mary Quarterly, XXVI (Oct. 1969), 604-07.
Gordon S. Wood's The Creation of the - JSTOR
G_ ORDON S. Wood's The Creation of the American Republic remains one of the most important books on the development of Amer- ican government in the Revolutionary era.
The American Revolution A History Gordon S Wood
History Gordon S Wood Gordon S. Wood's seminal work, The American Revolution: A Radical Reinterpretation, challenges our simplistic understanding, offering a nuanced and compelling …
Gordon S Wood The American Revolution A History Copy
Gordon S. Wood's seminal work, "The American Revolution: A History", stands as a towering achievement in historical scholarship. This meticulously researched and beautifully written …
American Revolution as a Radical Movement (Edited Excerpt, …
American Revolution as a Radical Movement (Edited Excerpt, 1991) Gordon Wood We Americans like to think of our revolution as not being radical; indeed, most of the time we consider it …
How Revolutionary Was The American Revolution? - Saylor Academy
In his Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, historian Gordon S. Wood argues that the American revolutionaries’ dedication to making equality one of the …
Also There at the Creation: Going beyond Gordon S. Wood - JSTOR
Wood's book, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, is enormously ambitious in attempting to go beyond a reconsideration of constitution making in the Revolutionary era to an …
Gordon Wood - Hidden History
His author credits include The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, and Empire of Liberty: A …
Gordon S. Wood - flexlm.seti.org
Gordon S. Wood's "The American Revolution: A History" stands as a monumental work in historical scholarship, re- interpreting the American Revolution not just as a political event but …
Ms. Pettingill AP United States History (APUSH) Summer Reading …
Assignment 2 – Read Gordon Wood’s “American Revolution” and complete the attached reading questions. Due on August 27 . Assignment 3 – Start your research projects!
The Significance of the Early Republic - JSTOR
Gordon S. Wood Until very recently the period from the American Revolution to the election of Andrew Jackson was the most neglected if not the most despised period of American history. …
The American Revolution A History Gordon S Wood (PDF)
"The American Revolution: A History" provides a deep and nuanced understanding of a pivotal moment in American history. By analyzing the revolution's radical nature, its embrace of …
RGordon S. Wood - James Madison Program
Gordon S. Wood is the Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University and recipient of the Pulitzer-Prize in History for his book The Radicalism of …
Introduction - JSTOR
5. Gordon S. Wood alternates between defining colonial society as monarchical and republican in Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1992). For a recent summary …
Gordon S. Wood's Republican Revolution - JSTOR
Gordon S. Wood's Republican Revolution Peter S. Onuf G_ ORDON S. Wood's Creation of the American Republic brilliantly evokes the unintended consequences of America's republican …
The American Revolution A History Gordon S Wood
The American Revolution: A History (Modern Library Chronicles) Jan 22, 2002 · Gordon S. Wood's The American Revolution, part of the Modern Library Chronicles series, is an erudite, concise summary of the events and circumstances
Gordon S Wood The American Revolution A History Full PDF
Gordon S. Wood’s The American Revolution: A History provides a compelling and insightful perspective on this formative period in American history. By focusing on the societal and cultural transformations alongside the political upheavals, Wood presents a richer and more nuanced narrative than traditional accounts.
Jack Rakove, Stanford University - Archive.org
“In his splendid new book Gordon Wood rescues the American Revolution fro m those who would see it as a conse rvative or backward-looking event … In a rapidly changing world, Wood provides a timely reminder of the radical energy that drives popular democracy.” —T. H. Breen, Northwestern University “A land mark study, a superb ...
The American Revolution - JSTOR
Among the monographs, Gordon Wood's The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 received the most votes, with works by Bernard Bailyn, Pauline Maier, and Charles Royster close behind.
The American Revolution A History Gordon S Wood ; Gordon S. Wood …
American nationhood and explains why the American Revolution remains so essential. For Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood, the American Revolution is the most important event in our history, bar none. Since American identity is so fluid, we have had to continually return to our nation’s founding to understand who we are.
The Social Origins of American Revolutionary Ideology - JSTOR
Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, William and Mary Quarterly, XXVI (Oct. 1969), 604-07.
Gordon S. Wood's The Creation of the - JSTOR
G_ ORDON S. Wood's The Creation of the American Republic remains one of the most important books on the development of Amer- ican government in the Revolutionary era.
The American Revolution A History Gordon S Wood
History Gordon S Wood Gordon S. Wood's seminal work, The American Revolution: A Radical Reinterpretation, challenges our simplistic understanding, offering a nuanced and compelling narrative that shifts the focus from battlefield victories to
Gordon S Wood The American Revolution A History Copy
Gordon S. Wood's seminal work, "The American Revolution: A History", stands as a towering achievement in historical scholarship. This meticulously researched and beautifully written masterpiece delves into the complex and multifaceted
American Revolution as a Radical Movement (Edited Excerpt, 1991) Gordon ...
American Revolution as a Radical Movement (Edited Excerpt, 1991) Gordon Wood We Americans like to think of our revolution as not being radical; indeed, most of the time we consider it downright conservative. It certainly does not appear to resemble the revolutions of other nations in which people were killed,
How Revolutionary Was The American Revolution? - Saylor …
In his Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, historian Gordon S. Wood argues that the American revolutionaries’ dedication to making equality one of the most important bedrocks of society was “the single most powerful and radical ideological force in all of American history.”1 The Revolution’s ideals of equalit...
Also There at the Creation: Going beyond Gordon S. Wood - JSTOR
Wood's book, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, is enormously ambitious in attempting to go beyond a reconsideration of constitution making in the Revolutionary era to an analysis of the political culture at large.
Gordon Wood - Hidden History
His author credits include The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, and Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815.
Gordon S. Wood - flexlm.seti.org
Gordon S. Wood's "The American Revolution: A History" stands as a monumental work in historical scholarship, re- interpreting the American Revolution not just as a political event but as a profound social transformation.
Ms. Pettingill AP United States History (APUSH) Summer Reading …
Assignment 2 – Read Gordon Wood’s “American Revolution” and complete the attached reading questions. Due on August 27 . Assignment 3 – Start your research projects!
The Significance of the Early Republic - JSTOR
Gordon S. Wood Until very recently the period from the American Revolution to the election of Andrew Jackson was the most neglected if not the most despised period of American history. Although this has not always been the case, certainly during the past generation or so-during the golden age of historical reinterpretation following World War ...
The American Revolution A History Gordon S Wood (PDF)
"The American Revolution: A History" provides a deep and nuanced understanding of a pivotal moment in American history. By analyzing the revolution's radical nature, its embrace of republican ideals, and its lasting impact on social structures,
RGordon S. Wood - James Madison Program
Gordon S. Wood is the Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University and recipient of the Pulitzer-Prize in History for his book The Radicalism of the American Revolution.
Introduction - JSTOR
5. Gordon S. Wood alternates between defining colonial society as monarchical and republican in Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1992). For a recent summary of the Progressive reading of the revolution, see Gregory H. Nobles and Alfred F. Young, Whose American Revolution Was It? Historians Interpret the Founding (New ...
Gordon S. Wood's Republican Revolution - JSTOR
Gordon S. Wood's Republican Revolution Peter S. Onuf G_ ORDON S. Wood's Creation of the American Republic brilliantly evokes the unintended consequences of America's republican revolution. Wood shows that "republicanism" was a highly unsta-ble synthesis at best. The dizzying ideological transformations he skillfully
