A 600 page book on the political and legal theory that influenced the forces forming the burgeoning independent United States, this is quite simply one of the most important books on American history I have ever read. Although published in 1969, it is still one of the most insightful and penetrating analyses of the thought of the time, one that eschews the divisive claims of modern political parties for the era just prior to that scourge in American politics.

Wood's book is one of the most intensely researched books I've ever read. It's rather a hefty synthesis of literally several hundred quotes representing the contending forces creating a new nation. How was America different than anything that came before? What were the actual political theories influencing the formative drivers of the governments of the American colonies? How did the founders decide on the precise system of tripartite government with its checks and balances and apportioned powers?

This book answers these questions in the actual words of the driving personas. We learn the theoretical underpinnings of the reasoning behind declaring independence (it was more about cutting ties with a corrupt and remote hierarchy than anything else and representing themselves within their own government), the various philosophies and multi-varied governments of the states in the era between 1776-1787 (some with more success than others), and finally the need for a national Constitution and the controversy over its reapportioning of power to a centralized government.

The seeds of our modern political system are here, as are many of the wrongful assumptions that the founders generated. The Federalists, who advocated for a strong central government, were in fact "republicans" (small r), who believed that America should be a bicameral legislature where the most enlightened intellectual elite would be represented as a check on the plurality of common men and their prejudices. The Anti-Federalists, who felt betrayed by the Constitutional Convention, were "democrats" (small d), who believed governments should be constituted purely of common folk elected popularly. That's why Jefferson's Anti-Federalists by 1800 would be calling themselves Democrats and why Lincoln's party would call itself Republicans; the Southerns states were primarily for states' rights and considered themselves that type of Democrat, and Lincoln's Republicans 60 years after that were for the primacy of the Union and the central Washington government. Those parties flipped their focus, both in Teddy Roosevelt's transformative time in D.C., as well as the Civil Rights Era in the 1950s and 1960s.

The primary emphasis I personally perceived is even more important in 2018 than 1969. The Founders never intended for the corrupt or personally invested to hold office. Governments should be full of public servants with no financial reward. The Electoral College was a way to prevent the ascension of a demagogue (now it rubber stamps the vote of states without regard for the popular vote or for the fitness of the elected President). Gerrymandering would be taboo. The legislature should never be deadlocked due to personal or political concerns; now, they play all politics and power games to the detriment of the people. Everything was supposed to flow upwards from the grass roots democracy, and the people should feel fairly represented. With the American public more disenchanted with their government than ever before, it is fair to assert that we have moved a long way away from the initial vision set up so cogently in Wood's seminal study. Obviously for the hardy reader (it is no joke literally 618 pages of political and legal theory), but rewarding for those who try.

Bought this for eleven dollars at Powell's on a trip to Portland back in October, and started it soon after; I think it took so long to finish because reading it felt like work, or perhaps homework (although I was a history major at college I'm uncertain whether I read him then in my poor excuse for an American history curriculum*). Or maybe it was the interminable circularity of his points and Zagatian pathology of constructing prose not by synthesizing and summarizing but by hitching quotation snippets together. And yeah, as he admits in the new preface to this edition, the 600-plus pages so rife with equine corpse abuse give just about zero space to the influence of religious or broader philosophical trends (e.g. congregationalist protestantism, Scottish common-sense realism) on the rapid development of a fundamentally new and uniquely American political science. One would also wish for some discussion of how the intellectual leaders of the new republic expressed and classified the fact of their own subjugation of an entire class of people. Not a ham-fisted "in-the-context-of-the-time" defense, but just honesty as to where this social fact fit into their system of thinking or, if they did not think of it at all, then at least pointing as much out affirmatively. Otherwise, the story of the development of American constitutional notions is sanitized and false, a creation myth stripped of its original sin.**

But that's enough criticism - what a sheer pleasure to spend time with a teacher so obviously fascinated and hungry for his material. One of the main themes is the movement away from conceiving of government as embodying and mirroring society, as the English system purported to do by carving out the executive magistracy for the monarch, the peerage for the wealthy, wise and deserving aristocracy, and the House of Commons for everybody else. Instead, even though the formal structure of a President, Senate, and House of Representatives was drawn from each of the same, respectively (the judiciary a derivative, not independent, function of the monarch, of course, as was too the English legislature - the King's Parliament), the idea was not to reflect the allocations of liberty in society but to diffuse the right - for which all [who counted, of course] were equally qualified - to exercise governmental power amongst different functions, and thus forestall easy dominance by any one faction of any sort (as Wood winks at the very end, hence the consolidation of political parties, not provided for in the federal constitution at all, soon after its conception). It's too tempting to resist reading this with the egocentric view of the present, looking back from now for purposes of the genealogy or diagnosis of modern political idiosyncrasies. One sees the antecedent Whig belief in simplicity and (re)public(an) virtue (which survives in mythology, if nothing else) yield to the stronger forces of individualism and the market of self-interests to find a durable system for the sharing and wielding of power; in the constitutional design was embedded the DNA of latter-day fractiousness and dysfunction (not to mention disunion). There's a sort of sad little chapter at the end of a quixotically old-fashioned John Adams more or less shaking his fist at the moon in resistance to (or ignorance of) the radical change from a classical notion of naturally-ordained differences in society (of wealth, talent, wisdom, etc.) that should not only be not denied but formally recognized in the political economy; Wood slopes the floor a little bit to sympathize with Adams' more mature, adult cynicism set against the frenzied optimism for a democratic utopia.

There is much more in this book worth spending time with than I'm getting into here: the idea of sovereignty as original and ultimate authority; the notion of the same derived from the people versus monarch (and it's refreshing and grownup to think of monarchy as a political notion of a unitary executive, rather than the frivolous, but more common contemporary notion of royalty as a swarm of luxuriating dainties); the gestational development of the new political thinking in the various state constitutions during and after the Revolution; the idea of a constitution as a superior form of law, outside of the immediate reach of government officers to change; a précis of the Federalist/anti-Federalist debate, et al. In short, a good book for a long winter.


*And oh yeah, yeah, Good Will Hunting, "Gawdon Wood," etc. I haven't seen the whole movie, but I did watch that scene and don't really understand it - are grad students really supposed to spout verbatim quotes from prominent scholars like lines from Shakespeare? Is that a thing? My failure to appreciate that is the reason - the only reason - I'm not a history professor at Harvard.

**[Edited to remove an extraneous definite article before the word 'American'; the original language appears quoted in Robert's kind comment below, which alerted me to its clunkiness as first written.]

Wood’s classic inquiry into the American founding remains highly relevant today given the current political strife. What we’re able to learn from Wood’s careful and thorough examination of the founding era drawn primarily from principle sources helped by explosion of political pamphleting, is that the current structures of federal governance and the relationship between federal and state authority underwent profound transformations throughout the revolutionary era. It is clear from this analysis that it is nonsensical to speak in terms such as “the Founders thought xyz” given the degree to which single minds were so transformed, first by the frenzy and excitement leading up to 1776 and then throughout the turbulent years of the war and the Articles of Confederation. Wood masterfully demonstrates that fluidity of American political thought and how its various manifestations were eventually woven together into an imperfect product at the Philadelphia convention. In terms of the actual read, this book can be something of a slog. Written mostly in the form of quotations designed to emphasize particular points, there can appear to be a lot material that, with the benefit of hindsight, is not strictly necessary. Long passages and multiple similar quotations certainly lend evidentiary weight to Wood’s arguments (and were no doubt designed to win over a skeptical audience such as existed when Wood was first writing this book). Now, however, this becomes a book where you can really get lost in the minutiae of argumentation over various constitutional principles and the multiplicity of governance reforms at the state level. As a book for a general reader in US political history, this may not be the first place you want to turn. That being said, this was and remains a towering achievement of historical scholarship on the founding of the American Republic.

boring af had to read her for class

Once again, dry..But chaulk full of wholesome Americana

This book was not what I expected. I expected more historical context but this was straight political theory. There was no historical context to even hang the theory on he was espousing. And the book really comprises that small period of time when there was a debate going on about the constitution - span of mentioned dates 1774-1789 ish.

He quoted primary sources which is a great bonus. But he quoted so many especially in the beginning to the middle of the book it’s hard to follow what he’s trying to say or what his point or his conclusions are going to be. Either I got used to this or he started making some points closer to the end because I started to understand a little more of what he was trying to say.

I didn’t love the book or enjoy reading it as much as I wanted to but I understand the value of it which is why I gave it four stars. I think it could’ve been an easier to follow book if there was some narrative action threaded into the philosophy. In other words if he could tied what was happening to what people were saying and how that affected what was happening. I felt like we didn’t really get any of that until the last few chapters.

It's probably not as hard to read for people who are into and have read some political philosophy or really understand historical significance of the details of the time. It bogged way down into the weeds for me which made it hard for me to grasp some of the significance of what was being said.

That being said my favorite chapters, and the most interesting chapters were the chapters on the anti-federalist versus the federalists, the ideas the forefathers had about capitalism and their fears of unchecked wealth.

Just great history and great writing. Gordon Wood tends to focus on a few topics in particular but I found this book the most unique out of the books I've read. The book is dense, and requires some understanding of early American history. It's less a book about discrete events that occurred throughout the Revolutionary period than the transformation in political ideology and assumptions. It doesn't trace for example, the stories of particular founders, or the battles. Instead the book quotes extensively from newspapers, pamphlets, and correspondence to tease out the changes in the prevailing political philosophy. Ideology can be complex, so often there are people of the same general agreement still disagreeing on the details, or grasping the contradictions of intellectual commitments. The book argues that often even those who were most prophetic in their vision of where political philosophy was going was only seeing half the picture, slowly feeling their way into a new paradigm with implications for even today.

The colonists started with a generally British view of politics and sociology. There was a belief that politics was a science that had stable principles that could be teased out from history, so many of the colonists were incredibly well-read on history and political philosophy. But even in the beginning, the colonists were reading literature that was out of the mainstream in Britain, what Wood calls "country opposition" or Whig views, that had an almost paranoid view of court politics and feared concentration of power in particular. The Whigs feared the corruption of the magistrate in doling out favors and creating an aristocracy that ruled by connections instead of merit. The Whigs instead preferred legislatures which they took to better represent the people (essentially a replica of the people at large). This fit the colonial experience well, since it was their legislatures protecting them from the royal governors. Early state governments were wary of giving their magistrates too much power, sometimes stripping the executive powers of appointment, and war declaration and giving it to the legislatures. Some states even replaced their governors with multi-head councils.

There was a strong belief in republicanism, the idea that people would set aside their private interests for the greater public good, that legislators would not represent the narrow private interests of their constituents but rule in favor of a homogenous public good (some more radical thinkers even thought that there would need to be property redistribution in order to align the interests of the public). The colonists thought of America closer to the Republican ideal than decadent Europe, since America was relatively egalitarian (land was too plentiful for a landed nobility), and had simple tastes in general. However, the colonists were highly sensitive to the possible creation of inherited aristocracy as well as the well connected families. Famous founding fathers were resentful of the social superiority of those who ruled because they had the family connections and favor with the Crown. The colonists did not want an "artificial" aristocracy by crown connection but a "natural" one by merit.

But the revolution had unleashed social forces and leveling that went beyond ending artificial aristocracy to ending all aristocracy (a theme more explored in Radicalism of the American Revolution). Suddenly, even meritocracy seemed suspect and anti-Revolution. Populists came out and were elected to state legislatures not embarrassed by their lack of education but openly touting their salt-of-the-earth backgrounds. Wood argues that this was the true driving force behind the constitutional convention. In the eyes of many of the Founders the Revolution had gone overboard, destroying order with an excess of liberty (as represented by the various rebellions in Western Massachusetts, cumulating in Shay's rebellion), and giving too much power to the legislatures which could be as tyrannical as the crown (by passing legislation against the minority, creditors and propertied interests for example). The people, instead of electing their natural elites put their trust in demagogues who put local interests above the republican common good. The constitution with its focus on a national government, and relatively small membership would act as a filter for the natural elite to rule. Only the wealthy or famous could command the electoral loyalty to raise to national office. It would be a check on the overly demagogical and potentially tyrannical state legislatures.

A particularly interesting evolution was in the American conception of a "mixed" government and how this evolution lead to a radical new understanding of sovereignty. The colonists praised the British king-in-parliament system as a mixed government in the classical sense. The house of commons embodied democracy, the house of lords aristocracy, and the king monarchy. In the classical formulation, each form of governance had a fatal weakness. Democracy tended towards anarchy, monarchy towards tyranny, and aristocracy towards factionalism. By mixing the types of government, each of these weaknesses were avoided. The aristocrats would bring wisdom to the table, the commoners honesty and the king order. Additionally, but analytically separate, the house of lords, commons and king represented the different orders of society, the nobles, commons, and king respectively. Parliament thus "embodied" the realm. Early state constitutions matched these principles, sometimes even making the senate the explicit embodiment of the propertied interest (as in Massachusetts). However, as the revolution proceeded, the egalitarian ideology put pressure on this conception of singling out the elite. Eventually, the existence of the senate was justified as a checking mechanism on the lower house, in order to prevent abuse, instead of an aristocratic element of government. The implication arose then that the lower house was not truly the people, but its representatives, moving away from the embodiment principle. John Adams, who missed out on the developments of the time approved of the federal constitution based off the mixed constitution theory, as he saw that in America since there were no artificial distinctions the "rat race" between the haves and have-nots would even be more brutal, therefore requiring balancing by a strong executive. He thought that any government that had an executive was by definition a monarchy, and saw no contradiction in terms in a monarchial republic. His arguments confused his contemporaries, because he had missed out on the developments surrounding sovereignty.

But by the time of the constitutional convention the conception of government had actually radically changed. It was a basic assumption of the era that within any state there could only be one supreme sovereign, there could be no sovereign within a sovereign. This logic helped drive the revolution, since the colonial legislatures and parliament could not both be sovereign in the Empire. The colonists tried to argue that colonial legislatures would only control home affairs, while the parliament could only regulate trade (sometimes by taxes), but this conception fell apart. The idea of a unitary sovereignty also raised problems for the federalism embodied in the federal constitution. The states and federal government could not both be sovereign. Under pressure to justify the federal structure, as well as the extensive use of conventions (which were originally seen as legally dubious but used so often by the revolution that they were seen as more representative than the legislature by the end of it), the federalists came to the conclusion that the sovereignty was with the People, who never truly transfer it out of their own hands. Instead, the people could delegate bits and pieces to the federal and state governments. Part of the federalist rejection of a bill of rights, was the idea that traditional declaration of rights in British history were compacts negotiated between the rulers (kings) and the ruled. But in America, there was no such clear distinction, the people are rulers and the government (now all the branches) were simply their servants. The senate and magistrate no longer represented elements separate from the common people but were also servants like the legislature.

Tied into this development of sovereignty was the role of the constitution as a "higher law". The idea of the constitution as the highest law of the land had to be developed. There was no written higher law in Britain (there still isn't), because in the British mind, the constitution was simply the structure of the government and its acts. Since Parliament was sovereign, there could be no higher law binding it. However, the colonists (perhaps influenced by their tradition of charter granting) eventually came around to the idea that there was a higher law than ordinary legislation that could bind the legislature, other than a possible natural law prohibition against irrational legislation suggested by certain English sources. Early articulations of the idea were difficult, since thinkers were unsure how legislatures could bind later ones, or how it could even bind itself. Eventually, the idea developed that special conventions representing the people could pass higher law that would be enforceable against the legislature by the courts. Early political philosophy on the separation of powers focused on stripping the executive's power to corrupt the legislature by favors, and conceived of judiciary powers as inherently executive. The separation of powers was still nascent, and like early parliament, many state legislatures still acted as high courts. But as the idea of a judicially enforceable written higher law became real, the judiciary needed to be independent.

The book is really pretty magisterial though it's quite long. But Wood is a great writer, and there's enough interesting material that it doesn't ever feel like a slog. The greatest strength of the book was to show the evolution of political ideas that Americans today take for granted. Ideas about the separation of powers, the constitution as higher law, popular sovereignty, federalism, and the courts did not come handed down to the Framers but were forged in debate, political exigencies, conflicting pre-existing idealogical commitments, social anxieties, and occasionally inspirational genius. A must read for anyone fascinated by the Founding.

This was fascinating and such a great history focusing on the foundation of American politics and political theory. I learned so much from this book and was very impressed by the scholarship behind it (particularly liked the chapters focusing on the deterioration of classism and the birth of social and economic mobility). I didn't particularly like the author's writing style and how they formatted certain chapters; sometimes it was hard to follow and felt fragmented. But overall such an important book and I'd recommend it!

An investigation of the intellectual and political debates leading up to the American Revolution, the creation of the state constitutions, and the enacting of the Constitution. Unparalleled in the detail it goes into, and the care with which the threads are traced throughout the decades after the Revolution.

“The American Revolution has always seemed to be an extraordinary kind of revolution, and no more so than to the Revolutionaries themselves.”

This long history of the formation of the American Republic begins with an introduction by Gordon Wood about 30 years after its initial publication. This new introduction suggests a shift in thinking both in himself and the general consensus about the role of “republicanism” in the formation of the new republic. This focus helps to frame a little more of the reading here and you can trace the way in which Wood explores the concept in the original history, and imagining what he might say later. Apparently other works do shift his thinking on it, but those come later. For now, it’s interesting to look at how this idea is being shaped in the interpretation presented here.

This came in the late 1960s and is more or less connected with Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Both explore the ideological questions at play in the creation of American Republic. Wood’s focuses especially in the creation of the constitution, the debates over the forms of government, and the decisions that would shape where we went as a nation, and find ourselves now. In general, republicanism is the idea of forming a republic, built on representation of the people in government itself through some form of democracy or representation, but more broadly on a general distrust of nobility and aristocracy, and an expanding of rights to the common man and in their ability to be a part of both creating and understanding those rights.

The book doesn’t only write about that specifically, but it’s the backdrop of the book which also goes into pretty specific detail about things like the branches of government, the courts, the bicameral legislature, etc. It’s dense, but interesting, and even more so if the idea is that “historians” have moved on from some of its basic assumptions.

The book on how the US republic was built constitutionally.

A very, very good book, even if somewhat tedious and far, far longer than it should have been.