Bedford Public Library

The idea of America, reflections on the birth of the United States, Gordon S. Wood

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 339-371) and index

index present

non fiction

The idea of America

bibliography

Gordon S. Wood

reflections on the birth of the United States

A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the American Revolution explains why it remains the most significant event in our history. In a series of elegant and illuminating essays, Wood explores the ideological origins of the revolution--from ancient Rome to the European Enlightenment--and the founders' attempts to forge an American democracy

Part I: The American Revolution. Rhetoric and reality in the American Revolution ; The legacy of Rome in the American Revolution ; Conspiracy and the paranoid style: causality and deceit in the Eighteenth century -- Part II: The making of the Constitution and American democracy. Interests and disinterestedness in the making of the Constitution ; The origins of American Constitutionalism ; The making of American democracy ; The radicalism of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine considered -- Part III: The early republic. Monarchism and republicanism in early America ; Illusions of power in the awkward era of federalism ; The American enlightenment ; A history of rights in early America -- Conclusion : The American revolutionary tradition, or why America wants to spread democracy around the world