The Radicalism of the American Revolution

Rating:
Summary: Over written history
Review: I found this book to be extremely overwritten. In this, I am trying to say that the book proves to be very tedious in nature, somewhat boring and very long-winded. The book is cluttered with information and material that could have been written in a more clearer and interesting style. Reading this book reminds me of sitting in a large college class listening to a professor while looking at the top of his head, droning so endlessly that even the most interesting subject, would be dead in the water.

The subject matter, that the American Revolution changed radically the entire American culture from its English roots to the a more home grown American one. But this concept alone, isn't that new. I read some thing like this in my high school history book and in many other books on the American Revolution, they often talked about how the war for independence changes the social, political and economic structures of the new nation. But this was the first book that I read that dealt directly with that subject.

It did win the Pulitzer Prize but I am not sure why. A very scholarly written material, probably best left for scholarly minded readers with interest in this subject.

Rating:
Summary: The best single syntheis of the American Revolution
Review: In contrast to the widespread view of the American Revolution as a fundamentally conservative affair Gordon Wood in this well-written and intriguingly presented analysis states "...if we measure the radicalism by the amount of social change that actually took place...then the American Revolution was not conservative at all; on the contrary: it was as radical and revolutionary as any in history." Wood goes on to succinctly portray Colonial America as part of an empire based on patronage and patriarchy. It is world where people like Arthur Young belive that "the lower class must be kept poor or they will never be industrious," and where John Locke says "Trade is wholly inconsistnet with a gentleman's calling." It is a world based on barter and personal influence, where the colonies are less urban than France, let alone England, more literate than England yet less cosmopolitan.

Wood is not a radical, dangerous or otherwise, and his radicalism is on the intellectual plane. As the republican ideology of the Founders seeks to turn subjects into citizens and replace bonds of patriarchy with bonds of love, they release powerful forces of democracy and capitalism. It is the aura of the Revolution that influences slaves and workers, as opposed to any concrete achievement. Wood's account can be therefore more anecdotal than analytical and the economics of the revolution are often cursorily dealt with. There is little mention in his triumph of capitalism about the role of Southern plantations or the new proletariat or how an overwhelmingly agricultural society became more commercial than Europe. Rather than more closely discuss such questions as social mobility or popular attitudes, he quotes obvious exaggerations such as the one on page 172 about planters having "risen from the lowest rank" to achieve 100,000 pounds. (He also quotes Brissot de Warville two years after his death.)

Wood's account is not a Marxist one, so one should supplement it with other books. Wood notes the demographic explosion that caused American population to quadruple in four decades. This growth would not have been possible without the imperial dispossesion of the native population in North America, and the capitalist dispossesion of the peasantry in Europe. One should read Allen Kulikoff's The Agrarian Origins of American Capitalism. Wood also notes the boom in American Evangelicalism, much to the unplesant surpise of American leaders. He describes this is a fundamentally democractic movement, though he notes that Evangelicalism legimated their separation "and made morally possible their new participation in an impersonal marketplace." One should note the more caustic versions presented in Jon Butler's Awash in a Sea of Faith, and Charles Sellers' The Market Revolution. Nevertheless, this is a study that all students of revolution should have to read.

Rating:
Summary: Emphasizes Revolutionary Nature of the American Revolution
Review: In this compelling book which earned a Pulitzer Prize, distinguished historian Gordon S. Wood, demonstrates how the American Revolution was a revolution in the truest sense of the term, by creating a vast political transformation of American society in the decades immediately following the American Revolution and the drafting of the United States Constitution. Wood shows how Americans became an egalitarian people, shaped extensively by both political and commercial interests. He notes the existence of patronage based upon aristocracy, kinship and other societal connections which were prevalent within the American colonies on the eve of the Revolution. The Founding Fathers sought to end these connections, arguing instead from an Enlightenment perspective for an aristocracy of merit containing leaders whose qualities were based on intellect, virtue and the willingness to do service on behalf of the public good. Indeed, they were aware of the dangers inherent in "democracy" or mob rule, fearful of the possible consequences that "democratic" rule would not result in good government. And yet, to the amazement and dismay of Adams, Jefferson and others, their successful assault on aristocracy led inexcurably to a democratic republic. Wood makes a compelling case that this resulted from the social transformation that ended aristocratic ties brought on by the departure of many Loyalists who played important roles in both the politics and commerce of the American colonies. And this revolutionary aspect of the new American society, emphasized strongly in the development of new commercial ties and interests between classes, led eventually to the subsequent transformation of American politics from the Founding Fathers' desire to see the country run by an aristocracy of merit, to one in which political parties and their ensuing patronage, led to a swift democratization of American political life. Without a doubt, "The Radicalism of the American Revolution" is one of the most important social, economic and political histories of the early United States ever written, and one worthy of its Pulitzer Prize.

Rating:
Summary: Getting into the Grey Matter of the Revolution
Review: Make no mistake about it, Wood reminds us, the American Revolution _was_ a radical undertaking, even though the men we refer to as the Founding Fathers were social conservatives who had started out primarily driven to preserve the rights they should have expected to be able to enjoy as English citizens. The rights they championed were nothing new -the _radicalism_ came from the idea of dismissing monarchy, nobility and hereditary privilege and its attendant system of dependency. While this revolution didn't quite manage to extend that freedom from dependency upon women, slaves, or natives, it was at least a start, and certainly redefined the whole premise behind "natural rights." This book is not so much a straightforward this-followed-that account of the Revolution; Wood has already covered that in a separate book, _The American Revolution._ Here Wood gets more into the intellectual side of the Revolution, dissecting centuries' worth of English case law -the educative foundation for most of the Framers. Wherein lies the radicalism? For one thing, the American Revolution wasn't the class-against-class bloodbath into which the French Revolution disintegrated. One of the key points dissected in this book is the phenomenal growth of the colonies between 1750 and 1770 and the accompanying explosion of new enterprise and nothing less than the total transformation of what was thought to be a "traditional" economy -Wood hints that this shift may have played a greater role in "loosening the bands of society" than previously suspected.

Rating:
Summary: Accidental Radicals
Review: Nothing speaks better of the essential patriotism and relative unity of the American people than the near-blind acceptance of people from Left to Right that the Revolution was a ringing success and very "good" thing. On the other hand, nothing makes it harder to remedy the failings of the Revolution than that rather universal unwillingness to consider the possibility that it was a failure, one whose full disastrous dimensions have only become more evident with the passage of time. Though he does not present his argument in quite this stark a fashion, Gordon S. Woods's great book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, gives us the opportunity to step back and contemplate the tragic dimensions of what was meant to be a conservative republican revolution but turned into a liberal democratic--and, therefore, radical--one, dismaying the very men who effected it.

From the outset, Mr. Wood makes it clear how thoroughly republicanism had penetrated British thought:

"Republicanism did not belong only to the the margins, to the extreme right or left, of English political life. Monarchical and republican values existed side by side in the culture, and many good monarchists and many good English tories adopted republican ideals and principles without realizing the long-run implications of what they were doing. Although they seldom mentioned the term, educated people of varying political persuasions celebrated republicanism for its spirit, its morality, its freedom, its sense of friendship and duty, and its vision of society. Republicanism as a set of values and a form of life was much too pervasive, comprehensive, and involved with being liberal and enlightened to be seen as subversive and monarchical.

Instead of constituting some thin eddy flowing only on the edges of British or even European culture, this republican tradition thus became an important current in its own right that blended and mingled with the monarchical mainstream and influenced its color, tone, and direction. Eighteenth-century republicanism did not so much displace monarchy as transform it."

This phenomenon had been carried to the point that George III himself said: "The pride, the glory of Britain, and the direct end of its constitution is political liberty." Obviously if we are looking for what made the American Revolution radical it can not be its republicanism.

Of what though did republicanism consist? Mr. Wood offers the following outline:

"According to the classical republican tradition, man was by nature a political being, a citizen who achieved his greatest moral fulfillment by participating in a self-governing republic. Public or political liberty--or what we now call positive liberty--meant participation in government. And this political liberty in turn provided the means by which the personal liberty and private rights of the individual--what we today call negative liberty--were protected. In this classical republican tradition our modern distinction between positive and negative liberties was not yet clearly perceived, and the two forms of liberty were still often seen as one. Liberty was realized when the citizens were virtuous--that is, willing to sacrifice their private interests for the sake of the community, including service in public office without pecuniary rewards. This virtue could be found only in a republic of equal, active and independent citizens. To be completely virtuous citizens, men--never women, because it was assumed they were never independent--had to be free from dependence and from the petty interests of the marketplace. Any loss of independence and virtue was corruption.

The virtue that classical republicanism encouraged was public virtue. Private virtues such as prudence, frugality, and industry were important but, said Hume, they only made men 'servicable to themselves, and enable them to promote their own interests'; they were not 'such as make them perform their part in society.' Public virtue was the sacrifice of private desires and interests for the public interest. It was devotion to the commonweal. [...]

Republicanism thus put an enormous burden on individuals. They were expected to suppress their private wants and interests and develop disinterestedness--the term the eighteenth century most often used as a synonym for civic virtue: it better conveyed the increasing threats from interests that virtue now faced. [...]

Precisely because republics required civic virtue and disinterestedness among their citizens, they were very fragile polities, extremely liable to corruption. Republics demanded far more morally from their citizens than monarchies did of their subjects. In monarchies each man's desire to do what was right in his own eyes could be restrained by fear or force, by patronage or honor. In republics, however, each man must somehow be persuaded to sacrifice his personal desires, his luxuries, for the sake of the public good."

That's a poignant "somehow", is it not? For with the benefit of hindsight we well know that it proved impossible to so convince men and that what remains best about America is the way the Constitution and the two party system pit men's interests against each other, while what is worst is that the State has co-opted men by playing to their selfish interests, via things like social welfare programs. However noble the Founders' vision for their new republic, it was doomed, particularly once the restraint of a uniquely disinterested and ultimately authoritative monarchy was removed. We can only speculate--because the chance was missed and is unlikely to be offered again--about whether an American Republic freed from the British Parliament but still subject to the Crown, and a strengthened Crown at that, might have proved more enduring.

Rating:
Summary: good stuff
Review: one heck of read...made me want to go out and vote for something.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent History and Very Entertaining
Review: One of the best books I have read in recent years. Not only is it excellent history, it reads easily and is very convincing. If you really want to understand why the founding fathers did what they did, this will give you the straight stuff.

Rating:
Summary: More like Radical Rhetoric of the American Revolution!
Review: Radical speech and radical action are two different things. This book focuses on the radical speech and proposals of the revolutionary leaders, but doesn't show the inconsistency of their actions. It doesn't point out what the upper class had to gain as a result of independence or which ones joined after war was inevitable. Nor does it show how northern shipping magnates were a vital link in the African slave trade or the sacrifices of the common folk. Some wanted to establish an American monarchy, conquer foreign lands Mexico and Canada, but none wanted to establish a popular democracy. Some good points include the origin of political problems that we think are new - greedy politicians, pork-barrelling, parochialism, and minority voting blocks, special interests, etc. If you want to read about the sacrifices and perspectives of women, African slaves, white servants, Native Americans, and tenant farmes get A People's History of the American Revolution by Ray Raphael or A People's History of the United States - 1492 to Present by Howard Zinn.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, if not convincing
Review: Since its publication in the early 1990s, this text by Gordon Wood has faced mix reviews. Some are overly positive, some deceptively negative. The truth be told, this is an excellent text, if Wood all together fails to convince.

Beginning by stating that recently, people have begun to comment that the American Revolution is not nearly as "radical" as other revolutions, namely the French and Russin Revoutions. Wood believes, however, that the American Revolution, and what it actually achieved, is by far the most radial of all events within American History.

Broken up into three parts, Wood begins to weave a narrative that is strongly based upon secondary sources, and at times, it seems, in ignorance of more applicable primary materials. Some of his arguments seem quite a stretch: For example, a treatise written by John Locke in the 1690s regarding how to raise children makes its way to American in the eighteenth century. Using this as a cornerstone, Wood goes on to explain that children who haven't sufficient respect for their parents certainly would not have it for a distant political figure such as the King, thus the break with Britain partly due to a child-rearing treatise by Locke. Seem like a stretch? Yeah...at times it is.

Despite its tennous qualities, this is an interesting book, and Wood retains is position as one of the most skilled writers of American History.

Rating:
Summary: The Radicalism of the American Revolution
Review: The Radicalism of the American Revolution written by Gordon S. Wood is a powerful book that explains how a revolution transformed Colonial American society and events leading upto and after the American Revolution that changed a monarchial society into a democratic one unlike any that had ever existed.

Wood writes about the culture of early America along with analysis of the social and political effects. This book makes a good statement for how times were and overturns some long-held theories about the American Revolution. It's been said that the American Revolutions was a conservative movement, but Wood contends that this is far from the truth. Wood makes his point by saying that the Revolution transformed American society and culture... giving a thoroughly detailed picture of the old colonial, monarchical society complete with patriarchial dependence and patronage networks, also sheading light to the democratic structures already implicitly used during this time.

Wood's prose are flowing and he imparts a writing style that is readable and understandable. As the book progresses, it is divided into three main themes: Monarchy, Republicanism, and Democracy. Each of these themes have been worked by Wood to reveal why each played an important part toward the outcome of the American Revolution.

This book is a worthy read and explains in more human terms why the American Revolution did finally come about. To read this book will give you an account of the life and times as the people emerged, as the book demonstrated, that energy, effort and accomplishments of ordinary people, all working in concert, will prevail