Best book on the period, bar none.

In depth history of the approx. decade from independence to adoption of the Constitution. A classic!

This book is 40 years old but remains very relevant. Extremely well researched book that looks at how we came to be the United States and what led to the amazing moment where new form of government was established. Well worth a read.

The amount of research that backs the writing of this book is almost incomprehensible. It is a weighty volume, but the more I read the more fascinated I became. Following the discordant arguments among contemporary political writers of these formative years of America's founding, I began to question my own knowledge that they were ever able to resolve their differences enough to establish a viable nation. That they ultimately created the exquisite Constitution we continue to honor after 230 years, despite their unrelenting disagreements (which I never before appreciated), is surely a result of human compromise at its very best.

We all know that the American Revolution was unique among revolutions in that it was followed by the establishment of the first national government on earth not to be led by a king or any other individual or group of leaders who made—and enforced—the laws by which their people would live. But what Mr. Wood shows here is how difficult it was for the people who demanded "individual liberty" to make their own laws to actually do it. He steps us through the evolution of thought and practices over the precarious decade of withdrawal from British rule and quest for orderly governance within and among the thirteen new states.

Their first instinct was to set up individual state legislatures with representatives to be elected for very short terms (usually one year), often without an executive overseer, so fearful were the former colonists of re-instituting any imitation of their former royal lords. But these systems became unwieldy and incapable of enacting general laws to please ALL of the people. Besides that, the Confederacy set up by the initial Articles of cooperation of the new states proved dysfunctional because of reluctance of any state to surrender its own preferences to those of another state. Practical experience and disappointment in initial efforts led to debate over solutions. Somehow, anarchy was avoided by widespread determination to keep trying for a method to allow The People to choose their own form of government. There seemed no disagreement that it must be People-directed, but great disagreement over how this goal might be accomplished.

By the 1780s, the idea of adopting a Constitution to unite all the states into a single nation was a prevalent notion, but what shall it say? Then in 1784 a South Carolinian named Thomas Tudor Tucker published a pamphlet that suggested, "The constitution should be the avowed act of the people at large. It should be the first and fundamental law of the State, and should prescribe the limits of all delegated power. It should be declared to be paramount to all acts of the Legislature, and irrepealable and unalterable by any authority but the express consent of a majority of the citizens collected by such regular mode as may be therein provided."

Meanwhile, the idea of separating the assignments of governance into three distinct branches—executive, legislative, and judicial—to act as counter-powers against each other gained favor. A constitution to establish the branches became the issue. James Iredale of South Carolina said it "may be considered as a great power of attorney, under which no power can be exercised but what is expressly given." Thomas Paine added that a constitution was "a thing antecedent to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution," adding that a government "has of itself no rights; they are altogether duties."

We know the rest of the story. As Gordon Wood writes on the book's final pages, "The Americans of the Revolutionary generation . . . . had for the first time demonstrated to the world how a people could diagnose the ills of its society and work out a peaceable process of cure."

Goodness do I need to finish this book

If you stumbled upon this book because you were looking to read a history book about American Revolution, then this is the wrong book to address that desire. It is not about the events of the Revolutionary War; nor is it about the Declaration of Independence. It is a book focused exclusively on the science of politics that was developing in the years leading up to the war, its development during the war, and particularly its apotheosis after independence was declared. It is about all the debates that took place on all political and legal issues and how they were settled and resolved - if they ever truly were.

This is, by historians' consensus, one of the best and most scholarly books ever written about American history. Its scholarship is deep, penetrating and impeccable in all its facets. Gordon Wood undertook this enormous work after receiving his Ph. D. in history from Harvard and this was essentially the continuation of the work he undertook as a graduate student. However, having said that, to a layman this is also its major shortcoming: due to its immense and rigorous scholarship, the book is dense on political science theory, voluminous on quotations (and generally voluminous) and to a large degree dry. To sum it up: it is technically a monograph, and as such, it presents a topical treatment, rather than a narrative that most lay history readers are familiar with.

If you are a history buff, or a student doing research, this will be a great and epic read. But if you are looking for a more familiar popular history, rich in narrative and a fluid prose, then you will be disappointed and would be advised to look elsewhere. Indeed, Gordon Wood has written other more accessible works later in his career, all of which are terrific. With those reservations in mind, I still highly recommend this book.

The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 provides a good primer on the foundation of thought during the years from the Declaration of Independence through the drafting of the Constitution.

Early on, debates over the locus of taxation take place between Britain and her American colonies. The notion of virtual representation-which could have been used to justify Britain's post-French and Indian War taxation policies-was eventually dismissed by a critical mass of colonials.

Much of The Creation of the American Republic centers around how a consensus was reached between those advocating for more localized administration and those advocating a strong central government.

There were two clashing concerns in this concern. One group felt that a democratic republic could only function in a small geographical area of homogeneous population. These individuals were by and large of the Anti-Federalist persuasion and wanted decentralized state power.

But another strain of thought was that this form of government very much could work over a large geographical area with a heterogenous makeup, as the inability of various groups to dominate the others politically would maintain a balanced polity. These men drifted into the Alexander Hamiltonian Federalist camp and opinions and views began to harden.

Several founders are leaned on heavily by Wood and referenced quite often in the narrative. James Otis, Jr. was a particularly oft-mentioned American who helped begin the revolution against Britain. James Madison, who was in his Federalist stage in the years covered by this book, was of course another frequently recurring founder. His moniker of Father of the Constitution would of course make him vital in the years after the Revolutionary War concluded.

There is a ton of analysis of how the three branches of legislative, executive, and judicial power were decided upon and distributed. With the English Civil war only a century passed, there were fears of both legislative bodies held by some and fears of a too-strong monarch held by others.

Debates on how to draw a fine line between where legislative authority began/ended and where judicial authority began/ended was given plenty of attention.

Thomas Jefferson makes frequent appearances as an advocate of republicanism and limits on centralized government, but he does not go as far in this regard as more staunch Anti-Federalists like George Mason and Elbridge Gerry.

Toward the conclusion, the book delves into the reasoning behind inclusion of a Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution.

The Anti-Federalists had two trains of thought on this matter: some argued for it vehemently and did not want the Constitution ratified unless it would be part of it. Others thought that enumerating rights would actually strengthen the hand of the federal government, as the ones not listed could then be absorbed by that lever of government.

Federalists were initially opposed to this as a gimmick but they ultimately came around to acceptance of a Bill of Rights.

The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 is a fine primer on how the nation's founding ideologies were hashed out in its early days. From the Continental Congresses to the Constitutional Convention, Wood lays outs the lines of thinking and reasoning put forward by those striving to place a brand new country on the most solid possible footing.

It is not a masterpiece, but there is enough valuable insight into the country's founding to make this imminently recommendable for those seeking to grow their knowledge about America's founding debates.

-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado

Not perfect, but magisterial. In another venue I will write more extensively about Wood's work, which I undertook reading as a personal quest, in search of the republican spirit of America. I think I found it, pretty much, although I am left to fill in some soft spots for myself. Two things about the book are dissatisfying to me. First, Wood often handles quotations poorly. I don't mean he handles them dishonestly, or chooses them poorly; I mean he sometimes fails in managing the mechanics of quotation. Second, I think he pulls his punch in the end. The image of a "kinetic" republic with which he leaves us seems a bit contrived, cobbled on in order to avoid exactly where the line of evidence leads and to better fit the zeitgeist of the time of publication. These things said, I am left with a long string of recorded comments, to which I will return in reflection and composition, and with a profound longing for republican virtue.

The evolution of revolutionary thought.

Wood's 1969 monograph on the intellectual evolution of thought among the Founding Fathers to the Framers is a thorough and intellectually stimulating history that's sometimes drier than sand. Wood does a wonderful job tracing the development of revolutionary and constitutional thought as Founders and Framers countered and contradicted themselves on issues from representation/democracy, monarchism/aristocracy, unitary/divided government and how they wanted their new government to function.

Probably the most fascinating aspect of this history is that while the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation were revolutionary documents/reactions to British oppression (perceived and actual), the Constitution was a fundamentally conservative document that recognized that the Articles probably went a little too far in eschewing anything that smacked of Albion.

While the revolutionary documents centered on the supremacy of the legislatures as representatives of the people and the Founders, on many levels, thought that legislatures could do no wrong -- the Framers took a very different approach and derided the selfishness of "the people" both individually and collectively through their various state legislatures. This spurred a desire for a government that tried to more intentionally embrace "the public good" and more importantly, those men of good public standing that could pursue it (i.e. natural aristocracy). This resulted in a more open embrace of the faults and natural limitations of the people and an affirmative attempt to check those impulses through the structure of the new Constitution.

This contrast, the evolution of thought that led to it in only 10 years between the Framers and Founders is really what makes this a great intellectual history.

That being said, because this is a intellectual history, it's broken up by subject areas rather than a chronological narrative and reads very dryly at times. So as an engaging history it leaves something to be desired, but as an indispensable reference to thematic areas of philosophical thought among the Framers and Founders, it's invaluable.

This was not a "book" so much as a collage of artfully strung together phrase-length quotations -- sort of like if you asked to guy who wrote the restaurant reviews for Zagats to write about the intellectual history of the American Revolution. "I liked the 'balance of power' and 'the lack of a hereditary aristocracy,' but the steak was 'overcooked' and the maitre d' refused to 'give voting rights to the Negroes.'" Each paragraph had its own footnote, and a standard one that I opened to randomly reads: "Ibid., 364, 171, 33, 150, 422, 200, 356, 393, 374." So, that's what your getting.

The best part, though, was the actual ideas that were considered, if you could get through the ponderous writing style to actually think about them. What did the Founding Fathers mean when they talked about a "Republican form of government"? Not what we mean today, and not even what the people they were talking to actually meant. Why did America revolt over voting rights, while people in England -- many of whom also did not have voting rights -- did not?

Most interestingly for me, why did almost every state that formed its own Constitution after 1776 create a bicameral legislature with an upper and a lower house? Why does New jersey have a bicameral legislature today? "Upper" and "lower" than what? The obvious answer is that England did it that way -- with it's House of Lords and House of Commons. But in a country with no Lords, what was the Upper House/ State Senate actually supposed to BE? It seems that every state had a different answer, and while almost every state had an upper house, the answers were almost all different. Some states had an upper house with stricter voting requirements so only richer people voted for it. Some states had an upper house with stricter eligibility requirements for candidates, so everyone (who was a white man) voted but they could only vote for richer people. Some had a lower house for "the people" and an upper house for "the property." Only Pennsylvania, I think, had a unicameral legislature in the decade after 1776, and they didn't keep it for long. It's a fascinating case where everyone agreed on the same answer, but the answer itself was so poorly defensible that it is surprising that they didn't all stop for second and consider the fact that they were possibly all wrong.

Then, at the end, there was an incongruous chapter about "The Relevance of John Adams," which seemed like a personal grudge by the author against Adams, who seemed to write lots of things later in his life that went against parts of the author's thesis, so he had to show that no one was listening to him anyway. I'm going to keep the book for the footnotes, and if I ever want to look at any of these issues again, I'll read the book in the footnotes instead of this one again.

In The Creation of the American Republic, Gordon Wood tracks the transformation of the colonial, classical, and Whig-inspired conception of early American politics through the Revolution and the Constitutional crises of the 1780s to its arrival as a distinctly modern conception of politics, government, and republicanism. Wood's tome is an impressive feet, successfully extrapolating and distilling the political theories of countless colonial American thinkers in order to synthesize the schools and strains of political thought in a particularly complex era. This is predominately an intellectual history, understanding political culture as the intellectual debates and discussions that Americans carried on during the period in question. Wood nevertheless succeeds in going beyond the intellectual discussions of the Revolutionary era to focus on the gritty political and social conflicts that often propelled these ideological debates, identifying the gaps and connections between the rhetoric of the Revolutionaries and the material and social motivations they also held. Ultimately, Wood finds that the American system of government developed in the 1780s was "peculiarly the product of a democratic society" (615) - a society complete with economic, regional, and political strife yet instilled with a shared understanding of democratic political involvement. This conclusion, however, highlights one of the limitations of this study. Wood acknowledges that political discussions and decisions were "dictated by peculiar circumstances - the prevalence of Indians, the desire for western lands, the special interests of commerce - that defy generalization,"(484) but his study rarely adequately acknowledges the role historical contingency played in influencing or limiting the choices of these early American men. Wood sets out to highlight that important intellectual developments that still influence modern politics today did not originate in an intellectual vacuum, but the environment he presents could still be included with more context.

Only read appx. the first third of this.