The Radicalism of the American Revolution

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Ralph Waldo Emerson Award

This major work of historical, cultural, social, and political analysis overturns long-held theories about the nature and the effects of the American Revolution. Wood shows that it was not a conservative movement, a defense of American rights against British encroachments that was undertaken merely to preserve rather than change the existing structures of society. To the contrary, it is his thesis, based on an assessment of the changes that actually took place in the way people were socially and economically connected to one another, that the American Revolution was as radical as any revolution in modern history, and produced a society that was free and democratic far beyond anything thought either possible or desirable by the founding fathers. To make clear just how radically the Revolution transformed American society and culture, Wood provides a thoroughly detailed picture of the old colonial, monarchical society, outlining its vertical and horizontal divisions, patriarchal dependence, and patronage networks. He describes the democratic structures already implicit in colonial life that were brought to the surface by the Revolution, and shows how the revolutionaries of 1776 sought to replace the power of kinship and influence with that of merit and natural sociability.

“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. Bushman