How radical was the American Revolution, even with its imperfections? Stunningly so. Wood makes the case that it shook off the historical weight of political, economic, familial, and religious influences—any one of which could have stopped it cold. The founders and the people who supported them broke a mold and Wood explores how radical they were by putting the revolution into an interesting historical context beyond the normal schoolbook one.

The closing chapter explores the disappointment with the revolutionary experiment that the founders had at the end of their lives. They were troubled that their hope for a Republic was being dashed by America’s move to a democracy, and in particular a party-driven democracy where mob thinking dominated the country. It’s a good reminder that all the checks and balances in the US were meant to curb democracy and party, not to encourage mob rule and partisanship. The hope was that the best of our nature would rise to the top. Their interpretation of the word Patriot didn’t include blind faith in a state but an expected duty that the best of us would contribute to society.

What became of the democratic republican ideals of the American Revolution? In Wood's account, they gradually were swamped by the pursuit of self-interest (chap. 18), the pressure of what became known as "public opinion" (chap. 19), and the money required to attract public servants (chap. 16). Perhaps most succinctly,

... the entire Revolution could be summed up by the radical transformation Americans made in their understanding of property. (p. 269)

An institution of the Enlightenment that rose and subsided, one that aspired to a cosmopolitan liberalism, was the brotherhood of Freemasonry (chap. 12).

One cannot resist tweaking the noses of members of Congress, meeting in New York 1789, who complained about a meager salary of $6 per day. Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania griped, "You have no conception at what extravagant rates every thing is paid for in this place." (p. 292)

This is a different angle on the American Revolution than anything I'd read before. The radicalism wasn't in throwing off the British Government so much as it was throwing off the old order of society. America had no aristocracy, so the British idea that it was the disinterested gentlemen who were the appropriate rulers of society didn't work here (not that it had really worked well anywhere). Americans realized that everyone has his own interests in mind, thus representation of those interests in the government was the way forward.

This book does what the best history books do: it makes one more clearly understand the present. It deals only with the past, but it makes so clear the scale of the social and political changes wreaked by the American revolution, in terms of how people thought and behaved and why what America became was so different than anything that had come before, that one can't help but see how the repercussions continue to affect us. It's a slow read, and at times a bit repetitive, but always fascinating.

By the time I finished this book, back in October, I was so tired of Wood’s dry Kashi prose—as Matt memorably put it—that to write a review seemed more than I could bear. Recent reading about the Roman legacy and disaffected Russian gentlefolk has, however, recalled Wood to my thoughts. The Radicalism of the American Revolution was written against a notion of the revolution as essentially conservative. It’s easy notion to hold, for us in a multi-racial democracy. One group of white landowners in buckled shoes and knee breeches is as good as another, right? Not quite. Wood argues that though it lacked the usual extravaganzas—“no peasant uprisings, no jacqueries, no burning of chateaux, no storming of prisons”—the American Revolution nonetheless leveled the feudal social structure of colonial America and authorized a society in which labor was dignified instead of disdained—a society in which common (white) people were empowered to participate in politics, hustle unashamedly after wealth, and shout and stamp in whatever denominations they could rig up. Colonial America had been dominated by a monarchial gentry whose members held society together by “intricate networks of personal loyalties, obligations, and quasi-dependencies.” The patriarchs lent money in the absence of banks; fueled local economies in the maintenance of their estates; patronized the educations of the talented but lowly-born; controlled access to royal offices; and generally ruled as aristocracies always had and elsewhere did, from the timorous deference accorded them by artisans, mechanics and small farmers ashamed of their own dirty, calloused hands and awed by the crown connections, Olympian leisure, classical learning and supple manners attributed to their betters.


Most of the Founding Fathers—the “revolutionary generation”—came from the gentry. But from that gentry’s lowest rung; and that is key. (I knew Hamilton was a bastard from the Bahamas—“the bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar,” John Adams snarled—but not that both Adams and Jefferson were the first in their families to attend college and so receive the humane letters “thought necessary for participation in gentlemanly society”; and Washington was never formally exposed to such an education. Adams claimed, again biliously, that Washington couldn’t write six words without misspelling one; and later, he turned down repeated invitations to tour France because he didn’t know any French.) Relative outsiders to the webs of royal patronage, and contemptuous of the fawning and flattery that characterized paternalistic politics, America’s revolutionary gentry, good classically educated gentlemen as they were, countered what Adams called the “Idolatry to Monarchs, and servility to Aristocratical Pride” with a set of austere ideals drawn from their reading about the ancient republics. The revolutionary gentry offered itself as an enlightened patriciate, ruling from pure merit, and modeling, for the masses of the new society, ideals of disinterested civic virtue and a strenuous, self-sacrificial devotion the public good—“invoking these classical ideals,” writes Wood, “became the major means by which dissatisfied Britons on both sides of the Atlantic voiced their objections to the luxury, selfishness, and corruption of the monarchial world in which they lived.”


Wood’s section on classical republicanism as political counterculture was one of my favorites in the book. He writes about how the educated of the day could not hear enough about the severe martial personae of Sparta and Republican Rome. The “maxims of ancient policy,” as Hume called them, formed a curriculum for the would-be statesman. George Washington’s favorite book was Addison’s senatorial drama in blank verse, Cato; and it was in emulation of the Roman general Cincinnatus that the victorious Washington surrendered his supreme sword to the Congress, when the road to a military tyranny lay open and well-trodden. I seriously get dewy-eyed at the idea of backwoods humanism—at Cicero carried in a saddlebag, Tacitus piercing the forests of New World.

Not all our books will perish, nor our statues, if broken, lie unrepaired; other domes and pediments will rise from our domes and pediments... (Memoirs of Hadrian)

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This was a great book to read about the American Revolution and grasping a better understanding of the roots for radicalism and rebellion. Very interesting and one of my favorites from this semester.

Simply incredible. Wood, one of the premier scholars of the American Revolution, demonstrates the various ways that the American Revolution broke from much that came before it. This is essential reading for anyone interested in American history, especially the unique and distinct contribution of the American Revolution to the one the world is viewed still today. Poignantly, he shows how the founding fathers who helped create a movement that ultimately left them displaced as the pursuit of freedom and equality grow beyond the bounds of what they themselves conceived.

I thought I understood the essence of the American Revolution, but I was wrong. I knew the major figures, the course of the war, and the formation of a unique government. I chose this particular book to learn about the ideas that inspired the Founding Fathers. I had no idea about how much more insightful it would prove to be. This remarkable story of social change does much to explain the evolution of the American character. In many ways this book re-framed my overall understanding of history.

This was a bit disappointing, actually. Wood makes an important and compelling argument, but it's often very abstract and philosophical, detached from lives, stories, and sequences of events--the stuff of history. He's much too comfortable in the mode of assertion and ends up constructing a history of ideas that's quite ... floaty.

In The Radicalism of the American Revolution, published in 1991, Gordon S. Wood writes about the changes of the social hierarchy before, during, and after the United States’ War for Independence. He uses the intellectual school of thought to explain the motivation for the war by explaining the breakdown of the monarchical and patriarchal structure in colonial America, the development of republican thought, and finally the development of democratic thought. Wood uses many sources to explain and prove his thesis that republicanism was the basis for, and continuing effect of the American Revolution and the United States Constitution. The main question that Wood asks in the book is, how revolutionary was the American Revolution? His answer is that it had a slow but lasting effect in the fact that it broke down old monarchical and paternal tendencies of European cultures at the time of the Revolution based on the idea of Republicanism and equality through personal relationships created before the Revolution took place. In essence, he argues that it was in fact far reaching and a true revolution causing changes that allowed the United States to become the world power that it today.

Wood separated the book into three sections organized chronologically with nineteen chapters organized by topic. The first section titled, “Monarchy” portrays the traditional social hierarchy in the colonies as a close copy of that in England in three different places: the household, the society, and the government. This section explains the relationships between people in each of the three mentioned aspects of society. Based on a system of patriarchy, the household and family structure became dependent on the father as the head of the household as far as adulthood for the family’s children. The same type of hierarchy was attributed to society as those in the elite class held the political power and economic power in the colonies. These men, who held the title of “gentleman,” gained most of their power through inheritance and family standing. In order to earn the title, one could not use labor to make a living. Finally, the government depended on the same social structure as participation was based on social status and those who were “uninterested” or without monetary interest in the government.

In the second section, Wood explains the depletion of the social structure before the Revolution. The society became anti-authoritarian both in respect to the government in England and in the family as discipline became more lax. Social class became less of an issue as those outside of the elite class began to gain political and economic power due to the growth of trade inside of the colonies. The Revolution eventually led to the break from monarchical society and traditional familial relationships.

The third section, “Democracy” explains the continuing change of the three previously named aspects of society including the emergence of a middle class as a political and economic powerhouse. Equality advanced to the point that everybody could participate and be represented in government. Trade inside of the colonies also progressed as it became more important than foreign trade leading to the emergence of paper money changing the economic system and changing the way that people were connected. An economy based on the dollar replaced the one based on the credit of personal relationships.

Reviewers of the books recognize Wood’s work as a significant addition to the study of the late Eighteenth Century and the American Revolution. Two of the three reviews point out that he views the Revolution as a triumph for democracy that had a long-lasting impact. They point out a few weaknesses in his argument though in the fact that he places all Americans in the same group and does not recognize the fact that inequalities were still evident following the Revolution and are still evident today, especially in regard to women and ethnic minorities. They also point out that other countries achieved many of the celebrated accomplishments of America without a Revolution and did much faster such as the end of slavery and women’s suffrage. They also question how the social changes relate to the creation of the new republic following the Revolution. Essentially, reviewers point out the lack of connection between the causes for independence and the causes for social change. One reviewer, Though they point out these weaknesses, they also agree that Wood opened a new view of the field of studying the American Revolution and a new questions for historians to analyze.

In The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Wood is very clear and organized in supporting his thesis. He uses a systematic method of showing the changes that he believes led to the Revolution and continued afterward. The book is very interesting and uses the logical argument that the Revolution was started by the breakdown of societal structure and continued following the war. Although he attempts to use sources to show the breakdown of society, Wood uses few sources from outside of the elite class, probably because of the lack of accessibility to those documents. Most of those sources come from the powerful white males of the period such as Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Jon Jay, Jon Adams, and Benjamin Rush among others. Therefore, Wood uses only those of elite status to portray the entire population of the period. It is difficult to justify using only those elite sources because a portion of his argument should show the viewpoint of those outside of the elite class in order to more effectively prove the thesis that all Americans were in support of the social changes that the Revolution brought with it.

Wood has made a significant contribution to the study of the American Revolution and attempts to prove that it was in fact a product of radical ideology instead of a conservative movement for independence from England alone. He shows that those behind the Revolution were aware of the social ramifications that it should have and that they made an attempt to create a more Republican society and attempted to break down the lines between the classes and create a society where all Americans were members of the class of gentlemen. He uses sufficient support of his thesis to show that there was a depletion of social standards after the Revolution but does not show how that digression directly led to it. In other words, Wood does not address the correlation between the causes for independence and the war and the social changes that he theorizes were the main cause and result of the American Revolution. There is not sufficient proof showing that the digression continued due to the Revolution but only an assumption that the Revolution and Constitution laid the foundation for the republican ideals that progressed afterward.

Overall, the Wood provided for a social history of the American Revolution that was different from others previous to him in that he viewed it as a social revolution more than a simple break from the English monarchy. He outlines the ideas behind the Revolution and the revolutionaries effectively and makes a good argument that there was more behind the American Revolution than simply the want and need to free the colonies from the English abuses that are so well known in other studies of that era.

The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood claims that the American Revolution was not only a political revolution, but also changed the social and economic structures of North America and the United States. Wood argues that the revolution that began in 1776 radically changed life in the colonies and subsequently life in the United States. Wood claims that ideas of republicanism were widely present and accepted by many people within the colonies prior to the Revolution. Colonists believed in the political reality of republicanism and many of the Founding Fathers recognized the changes this Revolution could mean for American society. Gordon S Wood effectively describes how the Revolution radically altered the political, social, and economic structures in the United States. His work follows a logical progress that describes what society was like just prior to the Revolution, what changes occurred with the onset of the Revolution and newly secured independence, and how these changes continued to develop in the decades following the Revolution. While Wood’s work covers changes in politics and economics, his most convincing argument for the radicalism that the American Revolution brought to the United States is in the changes that occurred in patterns of patronage and leadership, particularly in the North.

For anyone familiar with Gordon S. Wood, this book will be a useful overview of many key points which he covers at greater depths in other works. It can come off a bit dry and can be challenging as the reader must navigate their way through layers of societal context and quotations used to support any substantive claims. However, in this age of click-bait and over-played arguments, one gets a sense of how genuine truths emerge more through a series of overlapping trends that all point in the same direction. To that end, this work provides a sufficient platform to help frame many of the class struggles, truth-bending, and societal shifts that permeate our present day. It is comforting to get the sense that much of what we are dealing with today is part of a larger context that began with the unraveling and reconfiguration of many of the ancient fibers of lordship and entitlement. These were the bonds that held society together in many ways that escape our modern understanding of reality. Thus, Wood provides deep insight into the nature of our continual pursuit of a truly self-governing republic.