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4.5 stars. Sweeping and illuminating, even if its a bit of a slog at times with quote after quote after quote from the primary sources. The book focuses on the lead up to the constitutional convention, when the states were working out their own constitutions, and the ideas that made up the American Constitution were formed.

Detailed explanation of the role of republicanism in establishing the American republic, and necessary reading for anyone hoping to understand the role Wood and his mentor, Bernard Bailyn, played in changing historical understandings of early American politics.

How did thirteen separate colonies come together to devise one of the most durable systems of government ever created? Exactly how did we get the political system we live under? Gordon S. Wood’s The Creation of the American republic, 1776-1787 answers these questions and demystifies the "Miracle of Philadelphia" by probing the intellectual and spiritual roots of the American republic. Dr Wood achieved a prominent place among historians of early America with the publication of Creation in 1969. His study belongs to the “intellectual” history tradition of the American Revolution, continuing the tradition of Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution and owes much to it. Wood, however, probes much deeper than Bailyn’s work in breaking down the process whereby American political thought led to the Constitution. Politically, the book falls partly into the neo-Whig spectrum while acknowledging also the radical elements of the American achievement. It delineates how American political thought developed from early protests against British measures to the construction of the world's first federal republic; the crowning achievement of American political thought. The key concepts and ideas of those dramatic years shaped our system of government. According to Wood's thesis, this process featured a transformation in American political thinking. During this transformation, Americans developed a unique ideology and a truly American science of politics. American rebels began by insisting repeatedly that they were struggling on behalf of the British constitution, not against it. They believed in “the fundamental maxims of the British constitution; upon which, as upon a rock, our wise ancestors erected that stable fabrick.” After two dramatic decades of conflict with Britain, however, the intensive public debate over political principles led Americans to reject many fundamental features of the British constitution and move in a new direction which ultimately resulted in the creation of something unintended and unprecedented. It is this transformation that Gordon Wood maps out for us in his remarkable study of the revolutionary and constitutional era.

Simply put, this is one of the ten most important books written about early America in the last one hundred years.

One of the best books on American government I've ever read.

This was not exactly a school book, but one of my teachers kept recommending it so frequently and so heartily that I had to give it a try, even if its not exactly in my field. He was right. It is just an amazing piece of work.

It's an intellectual history of sorts, except there are practically no individual characters or thinkers. Most of the innumerable quotes come from a barely distinguished mass of newspapers and private correspondence. A typical paragraph may contain phrases from five papers, 2 diaries, and James Madison, all attributed only in the footnotes. But this is kind of the genius of the work. Wood tries to show how an entirely new way of political thought was created and spread in the ten turbulent years after independence, not just among a few thinkers, but among the whole American people. He begins by describing the old "civic republican" ideology that motivated the early revolutionaries (where government was composed of 3 distinct estates (not branches), focused almost entirely on the legislature, and run by disinterested public men of virtue), and then discusses the rise of a new, modern conception of politics (where separation of powers was paramount, and all sovereignty rested not in the "rulers" but in the people).

These are all big ideas, but Wood shows how America in this decade was peculiarly placed to wrestle with them. He focuses on the hitherto neglected debates over state constitutions, which forced every American to think about what a bicameral legislature meant, where the appointive power should lie, and how much power judges should be given to interpret the law. In Woods' story it seems that the whole country for ten years was engaged in one massive, and shockingly intelligent, constitutional debate. But more than just a debate, Wood shows an how this intellectual discussion was rooted in real events. He shows how state legislatures rose and fell, and, most importantly, how people actually LEARNED from the mistakes of the past, and how new arguments based on these events (say, on the nature of the upper house or "Senate") took thinkers in directions they never would have expected. When the time finally came for a new, federal constitution in 1787, Americans had already formulated some of the most daring and original political thought on the planet, and they were ready to implement it.

For me the book finally answered the question of how early America produced so many great political thinkers in what was then such a small, provincial backwater. The answer is that 10 years of highly refined discussion about the nature of colonial, state, and federal government made Americans perhaps the most experienced political thinkers to ever walk the earth. As Wood shows, they forged the world's first real constitution (he also shows how the very concept of a constitution was born and evolved), and created some of the most enduring thoughts about politics ever. The problem is that because this thought was scattered in countless pamphlets and papers, historians of political science haven't given these everyday Americans the credit they give to Locke or Montesquieu. Wood remedies the defect, and shows how Americans truly created something new under the sun, and how their seemingly abstract thoughts on things like national sovereignty and virtual representation had a real, and lasting, impact.

does not mention slavery of Native peoples; while it provides a nice theory of political science, it's not clear that such a thing necessarily substitutes for a materialist analysis (moreover, Wood seems to offer rather a lot of credulity to the founders).

Not at all what I expected, and very, very long, but certainly worth it.

If you only read one book on the early American experience; this is the one. It is clear that Dr. Wood immersed himself in the primary sources. His analysis and synthesis of those primary documents is nothing short of phenomenal. His basic thesis is that American political thought underwent a sea change between the Revolution and the Constitution. He is spot on. From a blind acceptance of the "people" as able to govern themselves without limitations to an acknowledgement that the "people" could be just as tyrannical as any monarch is the main thrust of Wood's thesis. The twist is that the Federalists co-opted the language of the old theory to push forward the Constitution and its limits on the "people". The book is absolutely brilliant, but a tough read. It needs to be sipped like a fine cognac not guzzled like a cheap beer.

This is one of the classic studies of American revolutionary-era thought. Wood argues convincingly that there was an evolution from the radical and liberal wings of English Whiggish thought to something unique to America. By the time of the ratification of the Constitution, this included a defeat of the more democratic, populist strains of American thought: "Though the artificial contrivance of the Constitution overlaying an expanded society, the Federalists meant to restore and to prolong the traditional kind of elitist influence in politics that social developments, especially since the Revolution, were undermining."

Essential for an understanding of how the American Republic was created, from the Declaration of Independence, through the Articles of Confederation and ending with the creation and adoption of the Constitution. This was required reading for a course I had on that subject in the Spring of 2010 at Temple University - Ambler.
Second time through, and just as relevant. 2/20/2014

Professor Wood provides an exhaustive examination of the political and philosophical ideologies of the Revolutionary generation and late 18th century American discourse. The creation of the American democratic republic was not a simple nor fluid process. It was born out of two revolutions: 1776 and 1787. Both of these events sought to form a system that was democratic and just while trying to balance the problematic considerations of governors, judiciaries, representation, democratic participation, consolidation, people power, balanced polity, and so on and so forth. The list of debates and ideas is incredible in itself. Wood does a fine job of weaving primary sources in the text. So much so that this text is almost a political quilt of American history.

Chocked full of fodder for deep debate and thesis ideas The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 is a dense text that is worth reading to understand and appreciate the historical complexities and nuances of our system along with its unique place in Western thought.