Gordon S. Wood, “the preeminent historian of the Revolution”, is a well known American historian who has received several awards such as the Pulitzer and Bancroft Prize for his historical books. In his book, The American Revolution: A History, he breaks down the key events based on his experiences and knowledge on the Revolutionary period. Wood was born in Concord, Massachusetts on November 27,1933. Wood teaches at many liberal renowned universities such as Brown, Cambridge, Northwestern , and Harvard. Now being eighty one years old, he recently retired from Brown University and lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
This paper presents two essays written by Gordon Wood and Barbara Smith during the nineteenth century on the American Revolution. Both historians have different points of views and interpretation on what this revolution was really about. The purpose of these writings is to give a clear idea of the American Revolution to the readers and to make them closely think on how it affected people’s life and the society. On one hand, the historian wood declared that the revolution ended monarchy and led the society to democracy. He believed that this revolution was a good start to a new life for all Americans.
Gordon Wood achieved great success among his peers with the publication of his book, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, for which he was awarded the Bancroft Prize, as well as the John H. Dunning Prize, both in 1970. In it, Dr. Wood breaks down the process of how American political thought developed from early protests against British measures in the construction of the world's first federal republic. He does so by giving us in detail using a number of different sources, historical information on the reasoning behind the revolution. Dr. Wood walks us through how our government started with a monarchical society which was hierarchical, and later transformed, and emerged as a more recognizable modern society, in where a more commercially oriented and capitalistic government came to light. Wood writes, “[Americans] learned how to define the rights of nature, how to search into, to distinguish, and to comprehend, the principles of physical, moral, religious, and civil liberty, how, in short, to discover and resist the forces of tyranny before they could be applied.
In “A Revolutionary People at War”, Charles Royster has developed a complex and in-depth thesis regarding the American Revolution. The book dives into the minds of the American people as it conveys the American character displayed throughout the Revolution. His book is multi-faceted, focusing on a number of themes that are beautifully intertwined. He discusses the prevailing American character during the American Revolution. The book studies the ideals of the American people during the revolution and how those ideals impacted the way the Continental Army was organized and how the Revolution was fought.
The chapters of our textbook, America: A Narrative History, written by George Brown Tindall and David Emory Shi, takes us on a historical yet comparative journey of the road to war and what caused the American Revolution, an insight into the war itself, and a perception to what life was like in America after the war was over. The essays of the book, America Compared: American History in International Perspective, collected by Carl J. Guarneri gives us a global context and a comparison between the North and South Americas in the dividing issues of labor, slavery, taxes, politics, economy, liberty, and equality. Part One These chapters in our textbook Tindall describes; the road to the American Revolution, the road to the surrendering of the British, and the road to the American colonists receiving their independence and developing the government which the people of the United States will be governed by. The road to the American Revolution consisted of several events, which escalated to the war that began April 19, 1775, as the tensions between the American colonies and the British Government advanced towards breaking point.
Massachusetts impact to colonial America was thoroughly important. Many events leading up to the American Revolution occurred in Massachusetts; events such as the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. The crown responded to these events by closing Boston ports in 1774. These events fueled colonist’s desire to fight the Crown, and lit the fuze to the American Revolution. Founding Fathers such as John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Joseph Warren.
After reading the work of Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution and Gordon Wood’s The Radicalism of the American Revolution, it is clear that the origins of the American Revolution and the debate over its interpretation has led well into the late 1900s despite a period gap of over 200 years. Each work independently exemplifies one of the broadly debated theories for the events leading and corresponding with the American revolution, ideas that the American Revolution was a result of a political and intellectual movement or a genuine event based on the changing view in the eighteenth century. Bailyn’s work, which published almost 25 years before the work of Wood, is an intellectual history which uses the medium of political pamphlets to provide details and argue his ideology as the American Revolution being mainly a political and intellectual movement as the result of the colonial defense against Britain to defend what became the ideals and principles of Americans in the late eighteenth-century.
The Revolution: American Crisis is an interesting documentary of the beginnings of the revolutionary war and the struggles the American colonists encountered. The documentary uses many different sources, the truth that not everyone approved of General George Washington leading the continental army, and the internal struggles the soldiers faced for perseverance and recruitment. The documentary “The Revolution: American Crisis,” had a variety of sources. They had a wide assortment of historians, authors and professors who thoughtfully expressed what occurred in the beginnings of the Revolutionary War.
The American Revolution is arguably the turning point of American history as it resulted in somewhat of a significant, positive change in politics, economics, and society as a whole. However, from 1775 to 1800, the effects of the revolution on the American society were subtle as most principles glorified by revolutionists contradicted the examples set forth by colonial reality. Perhaps most alike to revolutionary beliefs was the American economy and how it participated in free trade or encouraged the independence of hard labor. Politically, the states did apply Enlightenment and republican ideas as promised, but more often than not, the benefits of such ideas were limited to rich, land-owning, protestant, white men. This glorification of
The American Revolution was a tremendous point in history. For a young colony to rebel against its mothering country was uncommon. America’s liberation from the Crown’s rule gave many other nations the incentive to escape their own bonds. Most Americans now, only recognise the brutality as the reason to how the rebels had won.
The Revolution That Brought It All Century after century the human race repeatedly makes history an astonishment through gifted historians, scientists, and politicians whom have brought us warfare, revolutions and independence. These historical individuals and events have made our country patriotic, diverse and legendary. Our country has demonstrated courage and independence all through the French and Indian War through the independence of the United States. As a result, the American society has been given righteousness and freedom due to the rebellious and subversive American Revolution.
Gordon Wood had the best historiographical argument because his approach focused on the profound changes the American Revolution brought about, he reminded the reader that history should be judged within its own time and place, and explained how the Revolution would change the lives of women and African Americans. Wood’s argument about the radical nature of the American Revolution was most convincing because he argues the Revolution changed centuries of long held beliefs about equality, self-worth, and other ideas regarding property and labor. The Revolution altered the belief in what constitutes the worth of individuals and pushed for equality for more people. Wood stated that the equality of all white men laid the foundation for furthering
Isidore E. Sharpe Professor Tracy Moore HIS 104: American History 1 November 2017 Summary Paper on The American Revolution In 1760, The Stamp Act of brought about some intense chaos, which many colonies felt violated and combative over their liberty. It was known as the first great drama of the revolutionary era (Fonder, 179).
It’s been over 200 years since the original thirteen colonies of America fought their revolutionary war against Great Britain, in hopes of achieving their independence. We shall be going through a few areas of the Revolution, such as the military, social hierarchy, the role of men and women during the war, the colonists’ values of equality and their social contract response to the British government’s abuses, and we’ll compare these areas to the present day. The American Revolution started around April of 1775, when British redcoats and American militiamen exchanged gunshots in Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. However, that was only the beginning of the fighting; the reasons for the war date from years prior, when resistance from the
The American Revolution (1700-1790) was a historical event in time, where the Thirteen Colonies that became the United States of America, gained independence from the British Empire. Many historians would agree that the Revolution was caused by events and the growing differences between the colonists and England. The cause of the American Revolution could be summarized in the saying ‘liberty vs. tyranny’. The American Revolution was a struggle by liberty-loving Americans to free themselves from a dictatorial British rule. In this period, the Colonies protested against the British Empire and entered into the American Revolutionary War, also known as the American War of Independence.
