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Title details for The Idea of America by Gordon S. Wood - Available

The Idea of America

by Gordon S. Wood
Robert Fass
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
The preeminent historian of the Founding Era reflects on the birth of American nationhood and explains why the American Revolution remains so essential.
For Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Gordon S. Wood, the American Revolution is the most important event in our history, bar none. Since American identity is so fluid, we have had to continually return to our nation’s founding to understand who we are. In a series of illuminating essays, Wood explores the ideological origins of the Revolution—from Ancient Rome to the European Enlightenment—and the founders’ attempts to forge a democracy. He reflects on the origins of American exceptionalism, the radicalism and failed hopes of the founding generation, and the “terrifying gap” between us and the men who created the democratic state we take for granted. This is a profoundly revealing look at the event that forged the United States and its enduring power to define us.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 12, 2011

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781101978696
      • File size: 373927 KB
      • Duration: 12:59:00

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The Arguments of America might have been a better title because this is the story of conflicting interest groups and warring philosophies. Jefferson had one idea of America, Madison another. Nor is this book a single text. It consists instead of 11 essays, written over decades. Wood's fascination with the power and origin of ideas is contagious, but the Pulitzer-winning historian is always looking down from 30,000 feet. Abstractions can be narrated with force, and Robert Fass does his job, but then abstractions are, after all, just that--amusing but rarely intimate. If the listener takes nothing else away, at least the vision of the Founding Fathers as a gathering of companionable saints in periwigs must die a terrible death. B.H.C. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from February 21, 2011
      Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Wood challenges the popular view that the war for American independence was fought for practical and economic reasons, like unfair taxation. In this exceptional collection of essays (some previously published and others originating as lectures) he argues brilliantly to the contrary, that the Revolution was indeed fought over principles, such as liberty, republicanism, and equality. As he points out, Americans believed they alone had the virtues republicanism requires (such as simplicity and egalitarianism) and thus were supportive but skeptical of revolutions in France and Latin America. When joined to Protestant millennialism, Americans grew to believe that they were God's chosen people, with a mission to lead the world toward liberty and republican government, a view that Wood uses to explain America's continued attempts to create republics in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a remarkable study of the key chapter of American history and its ongoing influence on American character.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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