On the Radicalism of the American Revolution

This is an eminently readable book by the historian who may as well be the Tsar of American revolutionary history today. To Wood, the thing that made the American Revolution revolutionary was not the war of independence, nor the Articles of Confederation, nor the framing of the Constitution. Instead, Wood argues that the American Revolution was a social revolution. The United States’ social revolution was one ultimately defined by changing superior-subordinate relationships.

British North America in the mid-eighteenth century was defined by hierarchical behaviors and paternalism was engrained in colonial society. Everyone recognized who were their elites and who were their inferiors, and they treated people accordingly. Moreover, when people did rise to political office, nepotism was the order of the day. Wood does a good job of clarifying this in his discussion of Benjamin Franklin’s appointment as deputy postmaster, after which he appointed virtually his entire family as subordinates working for him.

However, the aristocratic nature of colonial America gave way to a desire to treat others with love, respect, and consent, with colonists coming to believe themselves just as good as their neighbors without regarding to social class (or caste). Yet, individuals were still judged according to their income and devotion to their labor. By the start of the Jacksonian era, Wood argues that the American economy was exploding and that the United States was a country dominated by the middling sort. Interestingly, he does not mean that there were a large number of Americans that fit in the social class between “aristocrats” and “proletariat;” rather, he argues that virtually all Americans shared a social class characterized by being comfortable enough to live without experiencing elegance.

Really interesting stuff here. That said, there’s a lot to criticize. Basically, my criticisms can be divided into two categories with my concrete views causing the two categories to overlap. First, Wood overstates his case. Second, Wood pays little/no attention to the position of women, Africans Americans, or Native Americans. For instance, it’s hard to say that nearly the entire country was of the middling sort when at least 1/3 of the South was enslaved while hundreds of thousands of people were evicted from their lands to make space for settlers. It’s little wonder that there were so many “middling” whites, but I’m not quite sure that this is a result of the Revolution. Instead, it sounds like plain old settler colonialism. This is an interesting oversight, because the book was written in the early 1990s and, by that point, scholars had begun to give a great deal of attention to slaves and women in particular, although they were just starting to look more closely at the experiences of Native Americans.

Nevertheless, if you keep these reservations in mind as you read the book, you’ll probably gain a lot from it—I know that I did.