The Radicalism of the American Revolution

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.I. Monarchy

1. Hierarchy
2. Patricians and Plebeians
3. Patriarchal Dependence
4. Patronage
5. Political Authority

II. Republicanism

6. The Republicanization of Monarchy
7. A Truncated Society
8. Loosening the Bands of Society
9. Enlightened Paternalism
10. Revolution
11. Enlightenment
12. Benevolence

III. Democracy

13. Equality
14. Interests
15. The Assault on Aristocracy
16. Democratic Officeholding
17. A World Within Themselves
18. The Celebration of Commerce
19. Middle-Class Order"The most important study of the American Revolution to appear in over twenty years ... a landmark book." —The New York Times Book Review

"A breathtaking social, political, and ideological analysis. This book will set the agenda for discussion for some time to come." —Richard L. BushmanGordon S. Wood is Alva O. Way Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. His books include the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Radicalism of the American Revolution, the Bancroft Prize-winning The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, and The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History. He writes frequently for The New York Review of Books and The New Republic.Winner of the Pulitzer Prize