The Radicalism of the American Revolution : Pulitzer Prize Winner

Examines colonial society and the transformations in colonial life that resulted from the republican tendencies brought to the surface by the Revolution.;pt. I. Monarchy. Hierarchy ; Patricians and plebeians ; Patriarchal dependence ; Patronage ; Political authority -- pt. II. Republicanism. Republicanization of monarchy ; Truncated society ; Enlightened paternalism ; Revolution ; Enlightenment ; Benevolence -- pt. III. Democracy. Equality ; Interests ; Assault on aristocracy ; Democratic officeholding ; World within themselves. 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.