American Revolution A Radical Analysis

After a in-depth analysis of the American Revolution, I have come to the conclusion that the Revolution was an exaggerated version of English citizens and their emphasis on liberty and freedom in British society; the government in place during and after the American Revolution was a melting pot of half Monarchy and half Democracy. Historian Gordon S. Wood’s claims in the 1992 book entitled The Radicalism of the American Revolution that “if we measure the radicalism by 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 and as revolutionary as any in history.” His claim is very …show more content…
“The task before the Americans was not to restore a good state of affairs they once had enjoyed [pre-American Revolution]— it was to abandon their old ways so they could build a republic of their own.”1 Other members of society, such as women and enslaved peoples, threatened the revolutionaries’ ideas by proposing equality and interest in redefining terms and laws in their own favor. Such is the way of a monarchy. The American Revolution could be thought of as a monarchy in the sense that the nobility of men were the king/ parliament that wrote laws and provided order that only benefited the men who had liberty and rights. The women, enslaved peoples, and Native Americans were thought of as the common folk who had to follow orders no matter the cost. This monarchy of sorts caused a certain hierarchy in Colonial America. Before and after the American Revolution, Colonial America had a system of superiors and inferiors which was caused by a lack of a unified central power besides the monarchy overseas and the weak Articles of Confederation. “Popular upheavals were central to the way that British power in America came to its end, and they were central as well to the beginnings of republicanism.”2 The beginning of republicanism led to single members of society rising to the challenge of creating a new system in which …show more content…
His claim is very clear and defined that there was no substantial social change for any members of society besides the Elite white male class of entitled men. Contrary to Wood’s original claim “if we measure the radicalism by the amount of social change that actually took place then the American Revolution was not conservative at all,” the democracy and republicanism of the era was still new and revolutionary. The founding fathers did look to make a change; however, it was not as revolutionary as it could have been. Although, our founding fathers made a lot groundbreaking work towards the direction of modern day America’s government, they clearly still had a long way to go in order to give rights to women, enslaved people, and Native Americans. Not only rights in general, but rights equal to their own political and social