This book took me a very long time to finish because it was so full of fascinating information. The time was extraordinarily well spent. Our revolution is just another example of the fact that revolutions don't work out the way revolutionaries intend. Ours didn't, although unlike just about every other revolution ours turned out better than the Founding Fathers intended, even if most of them were disappointed in the results.

2016 Review
I powered through the last 80 pgs. with grad student rapidity, Wood's point by this time is quite clear: unlike other historians who have argued that the American Revolution brought no real change in the day-to-day lives of ordinary citizens, Wood sees sweeping social changes that benefitted what became the middle class. Landed gentry and non-working aristocrats were no longer the only ones who had political say and in the new United States, working not idleness was valued. Perhaps this was because a monied salary came with an expanded purchasing power for the flux of goods that allowed one to buy basic gentility, but white men also gained access to voting in unprecedented numbers, rejecting aristocratic pretensions to rule. The change in the ideas of this social contract have roots that are distinctly American (New Englanders calling and rejecting their own pastors at whim), not British and well predate the Revolution. This freedom Wood ultimately notes, came with a cost - America is vulgar, rootless, materially driven, and anti-intellectual (pg. 369), but these allowances enable the common man to have a place and a say in how the government transpires.

Unlike other historians of the American Revolution, Wood sees the colonial period as a "premodern" NOT a modern era.


2008 Review
Certainly an excellent work, and essential reading for a colonial americanist. However, it is not a work without flaws. For a view of the scholarly debate, read the transcript of the Forum "How revolutionary was the Revolution? A Discussion of Gordon S. Wood's The Radicalism of the American Revolution" in the William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., Vol. 51, no 4 (Oct., 1994) pp. 677-716. Historians debating are McGiffert, Appleby, Clark-Smith, Zuckerman, and a rebuttle by Wood.

I cannot figure out what book the people read to give this thing 3 or 4 stars.
Reads like a textbook.
A lame textbook.
Instead of pieceing together a narrative based on some exciting action (of which there is plenty surrounding the American Revolution) it's structured like a mathematical proof in which the author is attempting to prove that he can bore us with the American Revolution.

Well, he succeeded with flying colors.
Here's another math proof for you:
Let x = time, and y = cost of book, and z = how many pages you can actually struggle through.
[x(y-1)/1] + z = the amount of life you just wasted.

This book is almost disconcerting to read as an American because it shows you so many of your own base assumptions and where they came from. Definitely will be filing it under "classic." It scratches so many intellectual itches for me.

I'm the type of guy who is perpetually fascinated with the idea of a "hierarchical" society - probably because I've never had any real exposure to such a thing. One of my all time favorite movies was "Barry Lyndon" because of its setting during the Seven Years War and how it captured that old-European mindset so flawlessly and placed you so completely in that world. For any American, this book teaches you what kind of world you might have lived in if you hadn't been born here.

The American Revolution wasn't special because it was such a "conservative" revolution. It was special because it was such a successful revolution.

I really enjoyed this book. It was very well written and researched, though I would expect no less from this author.

This is very much an intellectual history, not a history of the revolution as far as battles and congresses and such. It is about the ideals of how society should function, the values of society, and how those ideals and values changed over time. This is addressed in terms of how the ideals/values led to the American revolution, and were affected by it in turn. It covers the late colonial period to early nationhood.

The thesis is that the American revolution is often seen as more conservative than some, given the lack of class warfare or racial uprising. But he does a good job at showing that it was radical in its own way. He does this by examining American society and the revolution within its own time in history and as compared to European societies at that time as well, especially English. He points out instances where our vision of the revolution has been clouded by our own knowledge of how our society eventually evolved, as well as by other revolutions that came after ours. He also does a good job at addressing larger society, with documentation from people other than just the main Founders.

I was struck by just how many things in this book spoke to modern times. For instance, he talks about the democratization of religion leading into and through the Second Great Awakening, and how religion came to preoccupy itself with morality (which had previously been less important than the Church's structural influence in society). Given how this eventually led to something akin to morality police, and major issues with organized Christianity supporting slavery, Jim Crow, LGBT+ oppression, etc., this section felt almost ominous to me.

He also talked about the proliferation of facts, and how it became accepted that each person was the best arbiter of facts and truth, as opposed to placing faith in people more educated or with more experience. This was not just political opinions but in matters of facts and science, medicine, etc. The Federalists and Republicans had back and forths over whether or not this was right, with Federalists questioning the use of listening to error and falsehood to discover truth and how to tell who is right and who is wrong, and Republicans stating that public opinion was the arbiter. Sounds scary for minority rights, no?

Overall, again, a very well written and researched book. It gave me a lot to think about, both in terms of history and the nature of our revolution and in terms of modern day repercussions of these earlier developments. Highly recommend.

This is one of those books that changes the way you think about an important historical event, although it is not one of the easier reads I've encountered. Its Pulitzer prize-winning status obviously tells you that it's a work of considerable merit, and so it's easy for me to recommend it to anyone with a serious interest in the social, political, and economic history of America during the period from about 1720-1820. As someone who's written a book about the "Ten Crucial Days" of the American Revolution and is a historical interpreter at Washington Crossing Historic Park (PA), I'm used to delving into military works that relate to this period, so reading this was a notable and worthwhile change from that practice as it entirely excludes any consideration of the military aspects of the Revolution.

Wood's analysis is a fascinating take on how colonial society with its hierarchical and monarchical orientation evolved into a society dominated by a capitalist, democratic (at least for free adult white males) ethos that eventually gave rise to a populous, urban, industrial powerhouse of a nation. Wood's essential point is that this entailed a far-reaching transformation of American society that was as radical as that of any revolution in the modern world.

In its synthesis of the American Revolution, this book certainly dates itself, but in an awkward stance towards my beliefs, I enjoyed most of it. However for any individual that wants to learn more about the American Revolution and important lessons for today's America, Wood does nothing more than the same stuff you'd hear from sitting in a conventional history class. Moreover, if you are a (formerly) green-haired liberal like myself you'd be frantically flipping throughout "Radicalism" looking for a lens! One lens! Any lens! Compartively to everything else, there is very little analysis on any racial or gender complexities that any contemprary synthesis of our shared American heritage worth its tree-bark would include. But that is what makes this so interesting! In the shadow of our very (and I stress VERY) current debacles between Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project, Gordon Wood stands on his ye' ol soapbox all the way from 1993 and still is able to have a relevant counter-message. That is what is so impressive about this book, with all disagreements I have, I gotta hand it to the old guy.

That being said, I must confess the discussions and disparagement around "Radicalism" is more interesting and engrossing than the book itself. So it isn't fair to completely reccomend something that has homework attached to it. But Wood has very interesting thoughts surrounding the development of the "public virtue" in Revolutionary America, and an insightful/contradictory terminus for European Enlightenment, as well as modernism itself.

Rating: 3.5/5, A good history book to fight against.

"Although real and substanial (wealth) distinction existed in colonial America, the colonial Aristocracy was never as well established, never as wealthy, never as dominant as it would have liked" (pg 113).

Wood's entire book is based on his belief that the American Revolution was a truly radical and successful venture. I don't agree with all his assertions (Like "All Americans believed in the Revolution and its goals"--yea...that's not entirely accurate...)but for the most part, he had great sources and made some interesting points. I enjoyed learning the sociological history before and after the Revolution and appreciated that he didn't begin in 1760 and end in 1787 like so many other authors.

Wood’s “The Radicalism of the American Revolution” is a mind-bending exercise in historical context and its consequences. Unlike so many popular histories one is likely to read, Wood does not discuss historical events through the prism of modern sensibilities, but rather, makes the ancient sensibilities of the nation’s founders comprehensible to modern readers. The overriding cultural attitudes surrounding power and structures of social hierarchy of pre- and post-Revolutionary Americans were as vastly different from each other as they each are from those of our time. As understanding who we are is dependent on understanding where we came from, Wood’s history provides a fascinating and relevant touchstone.

Woods begins his work by describing the highly patriarchal social and economic structures of pre-Revolutionary America and how these, in many ways, were actually more pronounced and deeply entrenched than those of England at the same time. Essentially, pre-revolutionary American society was ruled by a class of genteel patricians who, by virtue of their means, educations, leisure and resulting social stature, viewed themselves as the rightful masters of society. The hallmark of this genteel class was a perception of “disinterestedness” made possible by means so significant that one was not required to dirty their hands with any form of labor. A disinterested member of the gentry was a man who was not dependent on anyone for his means, and so, presumably, could be trusted to make decisions for the common good of the larger population that were not burdened by the need to pander to any particular interest. In other words, a gentleman was “independent” and could, for the sake of honor, be counted on to decide what is best for everyone. As the vast majority of the colonists were, in addition to being culturally obliged to respect this hierarchy, also economically dependent on the patronage of this class the status quo was generally accepted by all as the natural order of things.

An interesting insight that emerged from Wood’s discussion was the fact that in the spirit of the times and the general acceptance of this hierarchy by all members of the society led to a sense that anyone who was not a “gentleman” was, by definition, a debased and dependent vassal. As such, modernly perceived horrors of things like slavery or indentured servitude were not seen as wrong by this proto-American society so much as they simply represented a particular status of debasement along a spectrum of indignity that non-gentry were entitled to and naturally shared.

The founding fathers were essentially a group of only-just gentry who chafed under a social structure that inevitably relegated them to a second-tier sort of preeminence. Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Hamilton, Washington, just to name a few were, each in their own way and for their own reasons, relegated to the top of a second class heap. Fascinated by the examples of ancient Greece and Republican Rome and entranced by the writings of such “egalitarian” Enlightenment thinkers as Locke and de Montesquieu, the founding fathers parlayed general discontent with perceived English ambivalence towards colonial interests into a Republican Revolution.

Interestingly, none of them were particularly adept at anticipating the consequences of the revolution they sponsored. They essentially envisioned a Republican world free of historical hereditary hierarchies in which merit and not birth was the measure of a man. Yet, they utterly failed to think through exactly how different the world they envisioned would be from the world they actually coveted. Meritorious men who rose in prominence, they assumed, would be like them…..dedicated to education, reason and “disinterested” public service. Democracy, however, produced a decidedly different result. With the patronage systems of the past stripped away and access to power available to a far broader group of men, the nation they created quickly devolved into self-interested factions whose constituents were obsessed with acquiring wealth. “Small men” of limited educations and cultural attainment rose to power through base campaigning for office that would have been unthinkably crude to a true gentleman. The establishment of modern banking that made credit and paper money available to “the many” essentially eliminated the bonds of patronage that had traditionally held the “common man” as a vassal to his wealthy patron. This increased liquidity, combined with a political structure that enabled the celebration of self-interest (avarice, in the Framers’ minds) basically tore the historical social structures apart at the seams.

The result was at once glorious and terrible. The common man, liberated by currency and politics from a state a near-serfdom was suddenly free to go and make his fortune by whatever means seemed good to him. This massive leveling of society unleashed the awesome power of a creative and industrious people who were suddenly free to apply their energies to making themselves rich. This elevation, however, came at the expense of manners, refinement, social order and any inclination to “reason” that had previously characterized the pre-revolutionary world. Bombast and pandering became to the means to office, leisure of the sort that made a classic liberal arts education possible was suddenly ridiculed and despised, the patriarchal structures of “the family” was disrupted and everywhere the cult of “disinterest” was replaced by an unashamed pursuit of wealth.

The book was interesting, well-written and contributed significantly to my understanding of American history and the world we’ve inhereited. I found this idea that relative to the ideals they were striving for, that for the most part the Founding Fathers felt their Republican experiment was an abject failure. The book also made clearer the genesis of American anti-intellectualism – ennoblement of the opinions of everyone without a corresponding obligation to actually educate themselves in the object of their opinion - and American evangelicalism - every man as the monitor of his own soul combined with set agendas of specific sins to be battled in order to validate one’s righteousness – was also fascinating and relevant to my understanding of our modern times.

"self-stiled friends of order (aristocrats) have, in all nations, been the cause of all the convulsions and distresses, which have agitated the world... they know well the force and power of every word; the east, west, north and south of every semi-colon; and can extract power from every dash." - Abraham Bishop

I have found my new favorite revolutionary-era thinker.

Apart from rendering me forever grateful for introducing me to Mr. Bishop, this book is also an excellent, thought-provoking read that delves deeply into the roots of the american revolution and the societal changes that occurred before, during, and after the war for independence. While it covers many topics, it focuses mainly on the state of aristocracy in the colonies and into the early years of the USA. It takes a close look at the structure of patronage/aristocracy that struggled to take hold in the "New World" and how the society morphed (through the shift of thought caused by the war, amounts of different ethnic population in the "new world", and the disillusionment after classical republicanism failed to work effortlessly (compounded by the conflict between anti-feds and federalists)) into a society of self-interestedness and self-promotion which believed that one's work was the highest indicator of one's worth and place in society and led eventually to the society that we have today ("the unalienable right of private judgment involves the liberty of thinking as we please on every subject"). It is interesting to see the roots of many of today's societal structures and issues in the struggles and changes of the american society in the early 19th and late 18th century era ("In no country in the world did public opinion become more awesome and powerful that it did in democratic America").
I should note that a deep-dive into his footnotes should probably be in order since there is a lot of information in here that should be double-checked against other sources. However, that would take A LOT of time, so if you're simply interested in getting a (one of many) detailed and focused view on pre- and post- war societal norms and ideals, this is a great book for you.

On a technical level, Mr. Wood's writing is understandable and clear, albeit a bit dry at times (as can be seen by how incredibly long it took me to finish this!). His transitions to new discussions are great and flowed well. If you're a history nerd and want to immerse yourself in details and arguments that are almost never discussed in your average high-school and university level history courses, I highly recommend this book to you.

There was a lot eye opening information presented. The classic view of the revolution is replaced with surprising facts about the thinking, the trends, the "progress" resulting from the revolution. The only criticism is you could call it that was a preponderance of examples. A point made and backed up was enough. Perhaps the ideas being contrary to other historians needed so much backing as "proof" but as just an interested reader I would have been happy with a shorter book that contained the same information and observations.

A most interesting and thorough examination of the unique way our form of government was created and almost immediately began to evolve. The author's research digs deeply into the various social, class, religious, economic and other factors that influenced the government's evolution over the first generation or so after the American revolution. Not an easy read, but well worth the effort.