Gordon Wood’s Radicalism of the American Revolution Essay -- Essays on

Gordon woodwinds Radicalism of the American Revolution is a maintain that extensively covers the origin and ideas preceding the American Revolution. Woods depend of the Revolution goes beyond the history and timeline of the war and offers a new encompassing look inside the social ideology and economic forces of the war. Wood explains in his give-and-take that America went through a two-stage progression to break away from the Monarchical rule of the English. He believes the pioneering revolutionaries were rooted in the belief of an American Republic. However, it was the radical acceptation of democracy that was the final step toward independence. The transformation between becoming a Republic, to ultimately becoming a democracy, is where Woods evaluation of the revolution differs from different historians. He contributes such a transformation to the social and economic factors that faced the colonists. While Gordon Wood creates a persuasive argument in his book, he does except neglect to consider other contributing factors of the revolution. It is these neglected factors that provide opportunity for criticism of his book.The overall feeling one gets from reading Woods book is that republicanism was not a radical concept to the American colonists. Wood believed the American colonists had a deep- rooted concept of Republicanism that existed before revolutionary ideas were conceived. The idea of republicanism could be seen in the colonial belief in independence and self-sacrifice. These principles were the founding forces that led to the beginning of the revolution. Wood would seem to believe that these founding forces were not as radical as the transformation to democratic thought. It is here that Wood points out the uncontrolla... ... social and economic forces with those of traditional forces his book would have a better claim on legitimacy. Gordon Wood gives an interesting insight into the Revolution. Overall, I find Woods argument to be persuasive and refreshing. There is little doubt that the forces that Wood proclaims as momentous in his history of the Revolution are important. However, it is this same concentration on non-traditional forces that leads to my criticism of his book. Wood should not have focused entirely on his commonly overlooked social and economic forces. Instead, he should have combined his insight along with the insight of other traditional forces to give his book a all-round(prenominal) theory behind the American Revolution. Work Cited Gordon S. Wood. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Vintage Reprint edition. March 2, 1993