“To appreciate the extent of change that took place in the Revolution, we have to re-create something of the old colonial society that was subsequently transformed.” In a way this book is a sequel to his earlier book The Creation of the American Republic, where among other things he begins to discuss and understand the role that republicanism played in the early republic. This book is a continuation of that discussion and in a lot of ways carries on the ideas of the first book, […]

“The American Revolution has always seemed to be an extraordinary kind of revolution, and no more so than to the Revolutionaries themselves.” This long history of the formation of the American Republic begins with an introduction by Gordon Wood about 30 years after its initial publication. This new introduction suggests a shift in thinking both in himself and the general consensus about the role of “republicanism” in the formation of the new republic. This focus helps to frame a little more of the reading here […]