Few events loom as large within the consciousness of the United States as the American Revolution. It has been endless debated and mythologized from the moment of its occurrence. By the same token, here are few topics as studied as the American Revolution. This seminal event has been examined and deliberated by generations of historians to the point there are few historiographies as extensive as that of the American Revolution. This has led to endless biographies of the founding fathers, multitudinous examinations of each battle, as well, as economic, political and Atlantic based histories of the event. Despite all this academic scrutiny debate about the very nature of the event remains, and various viewpoints on how to frame the Revolution will prove to be points of contention for the foreseeable future.
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Gordon Wood and Gary B. Nash are both are very vocal supporters of their respective schools of thought, occasionally to their detriment. However, there are few authors that present their cases as clearly as these two historians, and as a result much can be gained by taking a look at an exemplary work by each author. First we will consider Gordon Wood’s The Radicalization of the American Revolution (Random House, 1991). In this award winning synthesis Wood sought to challenge the widely held contention that the American Revolution was a conservative undertaking that was meant to maintain the status qou within the colonies. Instead Wood finds that “the amount of social change that actually took place by transformations in the relationships that bound people to each other, then the American Revolution was not conservative at all; on the contrary it was as radical a revolution as any in history.” (Wood p.
Gordon Wood and Gary B. Nash are both are very vocal supporters of their respective schools of thought, occasionally to their detriment. However, there are few authors that present their cases as clearly as these two historians, and as a result much can be gained by taking a look at an exemplary work by each author. First we will consider Gordon Wood’s The Radicalization of the American Revolution (Random House, 1991). In this award winning synthesis Wood sought to challenge the widely held contention that the American Revolution was a conservative undertaking that was meant to maintain the status qou within the colonies. Instead Wood finds that “the amount of social change that actually took place by transformations in the relationships that bound people to each other, then the American Revolution was not conservative at all; on the contrary it was as radical a revolution as any in history.” (Wood p.