GradStudReview: Wood's Radicalism of the American Revolution

5 minute book review of "The Radicalism of the American Revolution." Citation: Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalsim of the American Revolution. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1991.

[rsaathoff]

Wood also focuses on the idea that individual liberty was a huge emphasis on the American Revolution.

[lavyarshapoor]

Hello, what is the word you use "economic pertonilism"?

[AnthonyJohnson-ctyg]

I kind of feel Woods argument is weak. Along with Bailyn in Ideological Origins of the Revolution. I don’t think the facts support some ideological gulf that emerged between the colonies and London as an explanation. It was an a gulf of economic self interest that emerged. The mercantilism of the British empire inhibited the colonial desire for freer trade, along with Proclamation of 1763 that put the brakes on western expansion. When was the last time ideology trumped economic interest in your own life, or more to the point, does one risk fortune and life for ideas? Falls flat on me. Read some Charles Beard. Take a look at another old book, the colonial background to the revolution by Charles Andrews.