Gordon S Wood

In this brilliantly illuminating group portrait of the men who came to be known as the Founding Fathers, the incomparable Gordon Wood has written a book that seriously asks, "What made these men great?" and shows us, among many other things, just how much character did in fact matter. The life of each—Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Paine—is presented individually as well as collectively, but the thread that...

"From the great historian of the American Revolution, NYT-bestselling and Pulitzer-winning Gordon Wood, comes a majestic dual biography of two of America's most enduringly fascinating figures, whose partnership helped birth a nation, and whose subsequentfalling out did much to fix its course. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds, or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough...

Why did Benjamin Franklin retire from business and become gentleman? Why did he admire the British Empire - and join the American Revolution? Why did he begin writing his Autobiography when he did? And how did the "first American" become an American in the first place? Renowned historian Gordon S. Wood spent ten years studying a legend. In this untraditional biography, he penetrates beneath 200 years' accumulation of images and representations to...

Gordon Wood depicts not just a break with England, but the rejection of an entire way of life. A society with feudal dependencies, a politics of patronage, and a world view in which people were divided between the nobility and 'the Herd.' He shows how the theories of the country's founders became realities that sometimes baffled and disappointed them.

"This book deals with important issues of constitutionalism in the American Revolution. It ranges from the imperial debate that led to the Declaration of Independence to the revolutionary state constitution making in 1776 and the creation of the Federal Constitution in 1787. It includes a discussion of slavery and constitutionalism, the emergence of the judiciary as one of the major tripartite institutions of government, and the demarcation between...

An analysis of the practice and art of historical documentation evaluates the contributions of some of the world's most important historians, explaining how the modern world is requiring key changes to the discipline of recording history.

Thomas Paine was an important leader in the fight for independence from England. His pamphlet Common Sense stirred the populace to join the fight.

"From more than a thousand pamphlets published on both sides of the Atlantic during the period [of 1764-1776], acclaimed historian Gordon S. Wood has selected thrity-nine of the most influential and emblematic to reveal as never before how this momentous revolution unfolded. Here, in the first volume of a two-volume set, are nineteen works from the trans-Atlantic debate triggered by Parliament's imposition of new taxes and regulations designed to...

"... includes the complete newspaper exchange between Novanglus (Adams) and Massachusettensis (loyalist Daniel Leonard), as well as extensive diary excerpts and characteristically frank personal letters"--Jacket.