gordon s wood the american revolution a history

Wood, whose work re-envisioned the American Revolution and, unusually, has appealed to readers all across the political spectrum. The presence of the border countries in his chronicle, and his correct belief that the American governments that counted most were those of the separate states, and not the federal government, account for the plural “Republics” in his title. Eleven essays encompass the entire career of the historian Gordon S. Taylor’s use of them enriches his history. These are left out of the usual histories of the United States, and Mr.

Taylor’s history of the period inevitably features the United States, he signals his divergence from a parochial and xenophobic account by including brief forays into the histories of the countries bordering the United States. Taylor did not intend his book to be a comprehensive account of the antebellum decades he calls it “a concise introduction,” covering “some conventional topics,” including Alexander Hamilton’s financial program, Thomas Jefferson’s attempt to diminish the size of the federal government, Andrew Jackson’s war on the national bank and the efforts of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to challenge the slave system of the South. His book is written in clear, readable prose designed for readers with little or no prior knowledge of the period, and the work has touches of wokeness, which helps to fit it nicely into this extraordinary moment in our history. Taylor describes this one, “American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850,” as a sequel to his two earlier books, “American Colonies: The Settling of North America” (2001) and “American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804” (2016). He is the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor at the University of Virginia, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History and the author of 10 previous books, nearly all dealing with early American history.

Alan Taylor is one of America’s most distinguished historians.

Gordon s wood the american revolution a history