Faithful readers of my blog will know that I am a sucker for a short well-designed book on an interesting subject. The Modern Library Chronicles Series is aimed at producing just such books. The reason I bring this up is that I just finished one: The American Revolution: A History by Gordon S. Wood.
While I have neither the expertise nor the time and energy to give you a full-fledged review, I would like to recommend it. If you are looking for a quick read on this interesting subject or if you wouldn't mind knowing a little bit more about this nation's founding without getting bogged down in some academic tome, this would be a good place to start.
The American Revolution is no stranger to the tug and pull of partisan cheerleading posing as scholarship (not to say that some of that cheerleading isn't accurate and worthwhile). I am sure that those with strong interest and/or knowledge in the subject would say that Gordon S. Wood has a bias and/or “a take” on many of the issues involved but he attempts in this book not to make this a moralistic story of right and wrong but instead views "how the Revolution came about, what its character was, and what its consequences were" as "the questions this brief history seeks to answer."
In my opinion Wood gives a great overview of the historical, political, and intellectual ideas and events that make up this fascinating time in our country's history. He does so in a way that is accessible to the average reader but that is still thought provoking and interesting.
Wood breaks the book down into seven parts: Origins, American Resistance, Revolution, Constitution-Making and War, Republicanism, Republican Society, and the Federal Constitution. Each one of these sections is only 25 pages or so long. This makes for easy reading. In fact, if you had a chunk of time you could read the book in one sitting (it is only 167 pages). But within each chapter, and throughout the whole book, Wood weaves the political, economic, cultural, and intellectual issues together to give you a well-rounded picture of the events. He keeps the pace by creating a sense of discovery and the rush of events. You can tell that he is fascinated by the ideas and events he is describing and that fascination is contagious.
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