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Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different

gordon s. wood

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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.

336 pages, Hardcover

First published April 3,2006

This edition

Format
336 pages, Hardcover
Published
May 18, 2006 by Penguin Press HC, The
ISBN
9781594200939
ASIN
1594200939
Language
English

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About the author

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gordon s. wood

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Gordon Stewart Wood is an American historian and professor at Brown University. He is a recipient of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History for The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992). His book The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (1969) won the 1970 Bancroft Prize. In 2010, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.

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Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
31(31%)
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36(36%)
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33(33%)
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100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
t5rlk
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This is one of the best books I've read on the founding fathers. Though I've read biographies on most of the individuals written of here, I found the analysis compelling. In particular, I enjoyed the sections on Franklin, Madison, and Paine. Wood's treatment of Madison's seeming reversal of federalist beliefs was particularly enlightening (Wood argues, convincingly, that Madison didn't reverse himself--read the book to find out the details).

Wood's style is engaging, and his command of the subject(s) is obvious. I recommend this book to even the seasoned veteran of all things Founding Fathers.
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Kurahma
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The fact that Wood won a Pulitzer previously prompted me to read this one. I thought this would be a lot better than it was. It glossed over the lives of a few of the founders but really lacked substance.
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sky73
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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While Wood gives a passing sketch of each of the revolutionary figures he includes, his motivation for writing the book at all seems to be mired in a kind of fist-shaking, kids-these-days attitude about the current state of democracy as he sees it. He explains his theory that the revolutionary figures he's discussing were the last great generation of American statesmen, and that in fact their one true flaw is that they believed in democracy too much, giving too much power to the people, which then prevented more great men like themselves from rising to power. Obviously something of a wild ride from start to finish (with a pitstop for a truly incredible sentence describing Jefferson as "a very intelligent and bookish slaveholding southern planter, enlightened and progressive, no doubt. . ."), it's definitely one to be skipped in the perusal of popular histories of the founding fathers.
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inoculare
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This is an easy read, comprised of approximately 20 to 30 page chapters presenting brief bios of the founding fathers ranging from regal, aloof George Washington to the scurrilous and amoral Aaron Burr.

I recommend it as a good intro or as a refresher for those interested in educating themselves about these "Revolutionary Characters." However, the weakness of this book comes as the result of its very nature; each of the chapters seems more like a New Yorker article than a substantive historical work and so, in the end, it is not a terribly sustaining work that settles deep inside you. I give it three stars.
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suigetsu00
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Really liked it, didn't quite love it. I see the author's goal of showing how that generation's work led to unforeseen class consequences, but that's a thesis I don't care too much about. As he illustrates that, though, he demythologizes some of these great men, and if anything, I want them REmythologized! I appreciate how his approach itself had an unforeseen consequence--starkly painting the wide diversity of men who founded this nation--but I almost wish I didn't know that Franklin was a late and reluctant convert to the revolution, or that Jefferson as an older man was disappointed by the fallout of our revolution and turned into a cranky Mark Twain.

But this is solid history, and I learned a lot. The Paine chapter made me realize how little I know about that great man, and the Burr chapter was a bracing cautionary tale that perfectly contrasted with the rest of the book. Worthwhile, overall, but the next history I read about the founders will be a bit more conventional.
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KIOSHI_17
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I am a big fan of the founding fathers and this book offered a different perspective on them than your typical biography or non-fiction. It wasn’t about who they were or what they did, but more why they did it. This book dives into the founders’ values both as individuals and a collective group and how that influenced the founding of the USA.

What makes this book very thought-provoking is the idea of “disinterestedness.” This doesn’t mean uninterested but rather “above interest” and able to objectively look at issues from all sides and determine, through scholarship and debate, what the best path forward is. In today’s world this type of value is seen as elitist and in many ways the founders were elitist. Thomas Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ was not a bestseller because it was a new idea that took the nation by storm. It was a success because it was written as a common man would read and understand it. Same goes for Patrick Henry’s speeches. However, to form a new nation, on such “lofty ideals” like freedom and liberty, we needed men that embodied disinterestedness. Men that could debate these issues above where special interests may be, how it would be interpreted by the people, or the mechanics of how it would actually work. Because of this the founders could build something that had never been done before. They weren’t limited by “reality.” What they built has stood the test of time and grown with us as we have grown and changed.

These men were truly great and I enjoyed reading and learning about them through a different perspective.
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Wafeeqrox
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Add this book to the growing list of biographies and overviews of America's founding fathers. The focus of this book is the culture of the late 18th century; its similarities and differences from today.
For instance, Washington was treated as if he were a king because the new republic had no other example as a model. And Washington knew his every public move set precedence; but this made him hard to get to know, then and now.
Jefferson was brilliant but we still don't understand how he could write 'all men are created equal' and buy and sell slaves. In Jefferson's thinking did not equate democracy with capitalism; h envisioned us all as farmers, not city dwellers.
The slant of the book is interesting, but one wishes a David McCullough had written it.
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EZ_Sone
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Wood sets the stage for his "biovignettes" of selected revolutionaries by describing their world. Each was influenced positively or negatively by the aristocracy of the old world.

The best essay on "character" (as I took the title) is that of Washington, probably because he had so much of it. GW not only rejects the opportunity to be like a monarch, he actually frees his slaves and provides for those too feeble to benefit from freedom. Washington worries about the propriety of this and that and is careful about setting precedents. All Americans are indebted to him for setting high standards on day one. He seems the least influenced by the workless mandate of the "gentleman". Unlike some of the others, he actually fought in the war.

Of them all, the high born Burr, also a war veteran, comes off the worst. He's the first to milk patronage and court lobbyists.

The portrait of Jefferson is the weakest. While actions and words on slavery are given a reasonable treatment, Sally Hemmings is dismissed in a paragraph. Here also, the author allows his modern stereotypes to intervene, he compares Jefferson to a "knee jerk liberal" (because, Wood says, TJ is not an original thinker) but doesn't relate this to Jefferson's "contempt" for big government and says like modern day liberals TJ can't understand economic forces (is our spend thrift Congress liberal?). Wood's stereotypes later surface in the Paine essay where he implies modern day liberals see society as malevolent and government as beneficent.

Wood is able to bring us into that world where so much was still to be known. The founders' ideas were confined to what they knew. Hamilton had a vision, and worked hard to sell the idea of "currency". Others navigated the new political landscape to sell the idea of federalism to self interested provincial state governments. The founders despair as their letters to one another diminish in importance as coarser tracts of the common man, bereft of classical illusions become more influential. Most of these revolutionaries died discouraged or worried about the changes they had wrought.

Wood has digested a lot of information. I gave the book 3 stars and not 4 because I took the title to mean there would be more on morals/ethics and hoped to learn more about attitudes towards slavery, the native population, business dealings and women/family. The introductory chapter implies that the book will do this, but in this book "character" is more like "disposition" and through it we learn the attitudes of these revolutionaries and how these attitudes related to constitutional and governance issues.
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