GORDON S. WOOD

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Radicalism of the Revolution comes an elegant, concise, and lucid summary of the Revolutions origins, the war itself, and the social and political changes wrought by the struggle for American independence (The Wall Street Journal).This slim book tells a big story: one that invites the reader to contemplate the relationships between liberty, power, rights, and the unpredictable outcomes of human action.Los Angeles Times Book ReviewWhen Abraham Lincoln sought to define the significance of the United States, he naturally looked back to the American Revolution. He knew that the Revolution not only had legally created the United States, but also had produced all of the great hopes and values of the American people. Our noblest ideals and aspirations-our commitments to freedom, constitutionalism, the well-being of ordinary people, and equality-came out of the Revolutionary era. Lincoln saw as well that the Revolution had convinced Americans that they were a special people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty. The Revolution, in short, gave birth to whatever sense of nationhood and national purpose Americans have had.No doubt the story is a dramatic one: Thirteen insignificant colonies three thousand miles from the centers of Western civilization fought off British rule to become, in fewer than three decades, a huge, sprawling, rambunctious republic of nearly four million citizens. But the history of the American Revolution, like the history of the nation as a whole, ought not to be viewed simply as a story of right and wrong from which moral lessons are to be drawn. It is a complicated and at times ironic story that needs to be explained and understood, not blindly celebrated or condemned. How did this great revolution come about? What was its character? What were its consequences? These are the questions this short history seeks to answer. That it succeeds in such a profound and enthralling way is a tribute to Gordon Woods mastery of his subject, and of the historians craft.

Exceptional... a remarkable study of the key chapter of American history and its ongoing influence on American character.Publishers Weekly (starred review)The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the Founding Era reflects on the birth of American nationhood and explains why the American Revolution remains so essential to our identity and culture.For Gordon S. Wood, the American Revolution is the most important event in our history, bar none. Since American identity is so fluid and complex, we have had to continually return to our nations founding to understand who we are.In a series of illuminating essays, he explores the ideological origins of the Revolutionfrom Ancient Rome to the European Enlightenmentand the founders attempts to forge a new democracy. He reflects on the origins of American exceptionalism, the radicalism and failed hopes of the founding generation, and the terrifying gap between us and the men who created the democratic state we now take for granted. Gracefully written and filled with insight, The Idea of America is a profoundly revealing look at the event that forged the United States and its enduring power to define us.

In this brilliantly illuminating group portrait of the men who came to be known as the Founding Fathers, the incomparable Gordon Wood has written a book that seriously asks, "What made these men great?"—and shows us, among many other things, just how much character did in fact matter. The life of each—Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Paine—is presented individually as well as collectively, but the thread that binds these portraits together is the idea of character as a lived reality. They were members of the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made—men who understood that the arc of lives, as of nations, is one of moral progress.

An elegant synthesis done by the leading scholar in the field, which nicely integrates the work on the American Revolution over the last three decades but never loses contact with the older, classic questions that we have been arguing about for over two hundred years. -Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding BrothersA magnificent account of the revolution in arms and consciousness that gave birth to the American republic.When Abraham Lincoln sought to define the significance of the United States, he naturally looked back to the American Revolution. He knew that the Revolution not only had legally created the United States, but also had produced all of the great hopes and values of the American people. Our noblest ideals and aspirations-our commitments to freedom, constitutionalism, the well-being of ordinary people, and equality-came out of the Revolutionary era. Lincoln saw as well that the Revolution had convinced Americans that they were a special people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty. The Revolution, in short, gave birth to whatever sense of nationhood and national purpose Americans have had.No doubt the story is a dramatic one: Thirteen insignificant colonies three thousand miles from the centers of Western civilization fought off British rule to become, in fewer than three decades, a huge, sprawling, rambunctious republic of nearly four million citizens. But the history of the American Revolution, like the history of the nation as a whole, ought not to be viewed simply as a story of right and wrong from which moral lessons are to be drawn. It is a complicated and at times ironic story that needs to be explained and understood, not blindly celebrated or condemned. How did this great revolution come about? What was its character? What were its consequences? These are the questions this short history seeks to answer. That it succeeds in such a profound and enthralling way is a tribute to Gordon Woods mastery of his subject, and of the historians craft.From the Hardcover edition.

El autor recrea los orígenes de la revolución norteamericana, basados en un tremendo sentido de la independencia, del trabajo y de que los beneficios del trabajo de las personas les pertenece.

How did the revolution come about? What was its character? Its consequences? These are the questions this short history seeks to answer.

A New York Times bestseller! "Of those writing about the founding fathers, [Gordon Wood] is quite simply the best." The Philadelphia InquirerIn this brilliantly illuminating group portrait of the men who came to be known as the Founding Fathers, the incomparable Gordon Wood has written a book that seriously asks, What made these men great, and shows us, among many other things, just how much character did in fact matter. The life of eachWashington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Paineis presented individually as well as collectively, but the thread that binds these portraits together is the idea of character as a lived reality. They were members of the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made men who understood that the arc of lives, as of nations, is one of moral progress.

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017From the great historian of the American Revolution, New York Times-bestselling and Pulitzer-winning Gordon Wood, comes a majestic dual biography of two of Americas most enduringly fascinating figures, whose partnership helped birth a nation, and whose subsequent falling out did much to fix its course.Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds, or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough faith in the innate goodness of his fellow man to be democracys champion, was an aristocratic Southern slaveowner, while Adams, the overachiever from New Englands rising middling classes, painfully aware he was no aristocrat, was a skeptic about popular rule and a defender of a more elitist view of government. They worked closely in the crucible of revolution, crafting the Declaration of Independence and leading, with Franklin, the diplomatic effort that brought France into the fight. But ultimately, their profound differences would lead to a fundamental crisis, in their friendship and in the nation writ large, as they became the figureheads of two entirely new forces, the first American political parties. It was a bitter breach, lasting through the presidential administrations of both men, and beyond. But late in life, something remarkable happened: these two men were nudged into reconciliation. What started as a grudging trickle of correspondence became a great flood, and a friendship was rekindled, over the course of hundreds of letters. In their final years they were the last surviving founding fathers and cherished their role in this mighty young republic as it approached the half century mark in 1826. At last, on the afternoon of July 4th, 50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration, Adams let out a sigh and said, "At least Jefferson still lives." He died soon thereafter. In fact, a few hours earlier on that same day, far to the south in his home in Monticello, Jefferson died as well. Arguably no relationship in this countrys history carries as much freight as that of John Adams of Massachusetts and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Gordon Wood has more than done justice to these entwined lives and their meaning; he has written a magnificent new addition to Americas collective story.

An erudite scholar and an elegant writer, Gordon S. Wood has won both numerous awards and a broad readership since the 1969 publication of his widely acclaimed The Creation of the American Republic.With The Purpose of the Past, Wood has essentially created a history of American history, assessing the current state of the narrative vis-a-vis the work of some of its most important scholarsdoling out praise and scorn with equal measure. In this wise, passionate defense of historys ongoing necessity, Wood argues that we cannot make intelligent decisions about the future without understanding our past, offering a masters insight into what historyat its bestcan be and its essential role in our culture.

I cannot remember ever reading a work of history and biography that is quite so fluent, so perfectly composed and balanced . . . The New York SunExceptionally rich perspective on one of the most accomplished, complex, and unpredictable Americans of his own time or any other. The Washington Post Book WorldFrom the most respected chronicler of the early days of the Republicand winner of both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizescomes a landmark work that rescues Benjamin Franklin from a mythology that has blinded generations of Americans to the man he really was and makes sense of aspects of his life and career that would have otherwise remained mysterious. In place of the genial polymath, self-improver, and quintessential American, Gordon S. Wood reveals a figure much more ambiguous and complexand much more interesting. Charting the passage of Franklins life and reputation from relative popular indifference (his death, while the occasion for mass mourning in France, was widely ignored in America) to posthumous glory, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin sheds invaluable light on the emergence of our countrys idea of itself.

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER In a grand and immemsely readable synthesis of historical, political, cultural, and economic analysis, a prize-winning historian describes the events that made the American Revolution. Gordon S. Wood depicts a revolution that was about much more than a break from England, rather it transformed an almost feudal society into a democratic one, whose emerging realities sometimes baffled and disappointed its founding fathers.