Unabridged, 7 CDs, 8 hours Read by TBA The preeminent historian of the American Revolution explains why it remains the most significant event in our history.

The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States

History

WOOD, GORDON S.

Americas

Penguin Audio

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin

From the most respected chronicler of the early days of the Republic—and winner of both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes—comes a landmark work that rescues Benjamin Franklin from a mythology that has blinded generations of Americans to the man he really was and makes sense of aspects of his life and career that would have otherwise remained mysterious. In place of the genial polymath, self-improver, and quintessential American, Gordon S. Wood reveals a figure much more ambiguous and complex—and much more interesting. Charting the passage of Franklin’s life and reputation from relative popular indifference (his death, while the occasion for mass mourning in France, was widely ignored in America) to posthumous glory, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin sheds invaluable light on the emergence of our country’s idea of itself.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Penguin Publishing Group

A historical analysis of America's founding leaders identifies the character qualities that enabled them to make their pivotal contributions to the country's formation, discussing what their examples can teach modern readers and how their shared vision of a national meritocracy was shaped by period beliefs about character and leadership. Simultaneous.

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different

A New York Times bestseller! In this brilliantly illuminating group portrait of the men who came to be known as the Founding Fathers, the incomparable Gordon Wood has written a book that seriously asks, What made these men great, and shows us, among many other things, just how much character did in fact matter. The life of each, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Paine, is presented individually as well as collectively, but the thread that binds these portraits together is the idea of character as a lived reality. They were members of the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made men who understood that the arc of lives, as of nations, is one of moral progress. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash Broadway musical Hamilton has sparked new interest in the Revolutionary War and the Founding Fathers. In addition to Alexander Hamilton, the production also features George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Aaron Burr, Lafayette, and many more. Look for Gordon's most recent book, Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Penguin??Books

An erudite scholar and an elegant writer, Gordon S. Wood has won both numerous awards and a broad readership since the 1969 publication of his widely acclaimed The Creation of the American Republic. With The Purpose of the Past, Wood has essentially created a history of American history, assessing the current state of history vis-à-vis the work of some of its most important scholars-doling out praise and scorn with equal measure. In this wise, passionate defense of history's ongoing necessity, Wood argues that we cannot make intelligent decisions about the future without understanding our past. Wood offers a master's insight into what history-at its best-can be and reflects on its evolving and essential role in our culture.

The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History

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, he 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.

The Oxford History of the United States is by far the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, two New York Times bestsellers, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. Now, in the newest volume in the series, one of America's most esteemed historians, Gordon S. Wood, offers a brilliant account of the early American Republic, ranging from 1789 and the beginning of the national government to the end of the War of 1812. As Wood reveals, the period was marked by tumultuous change in all aspects of American life--in politics, society, economy, and culture. The men who founded the new government had high hopes for the future, but few of their hopes and dreams worked out quite as they expected. They hated political parties but parties nonetheless emerged. Some wanted the United States to become a great fiscal-military state like those of Britain and France; others wanted the country to remain a rural agricultural state very different from the European states. Instead, by 1815 the United States became something neither group anticipated. Many leaders expected American culture to flourish and surpass that of Europe; instead it became popularized and vulgarized. The leaders also hope to see the end of slavery; instead, despite the release of many slaves and the end of slavery in the North, slavery was stronger in 1815 than it had been in 1789. Many wanted to avoid entanglements with Europe, but instead the country became involved in Europe's wars and ended up waging another war with the former mother country. Still, with a new generation emerging by 1815, most Americans were confident and optimistic about the future of their country. Named a New York Times Notable Book, Empire of Liberty offers a marvelous account of this pivotal era when America took its first unsteady steps as a new and rapidly expanding nation.

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of the United States)

Oxford University Press

Product Description \nNew York Times 
 bestseller and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gordon S. Wood elucidates the debates over the founding documents of the United States.\nThe half century extending from the imperial crisis between Britain and its colonies in the 1760s to the early decades of the new republic of the United States was the greatest and most creative era of constitutionalism in American history, and perhaps in the world. During these decades, Americans 
explored and debated all aspects of politics and constitutionalism--the nature of power, liberty, representation, rights, the division of authority between different spheres of government, sovereignty, judicial authority, and written constitutions. The results of these issues produced institutions 
that have lasted for over two centuries.\nIn this new book, eminent historian Gordon S. Wood distills a lifetime of work on constitutional innovations during the Revolutionary era. In concise form, he illuminates critical events in the nation's founding, ranging from the imperial debate that led to the Declaration of Independence to the 
revolutionary state constitution making in 1776 and the creation of the Federal Constitution in 1787. Among other topics, he discusses slavery and constitutionalism, the emergence of the judiciary as one of the major tripartite institutions of government, the demarcation between public and private, 
and the formation of states' rights.\nHere is an immensely readable synthesis of the key era in the making of the history of the United States, presenting timely insights on the Constitution and the nation's foundational legal and political documents.\nReview 
"With characteristic insight, sobriety, and wisdom, Gordon Wood had given us much to consider in this thoughtful study of how the framers of the American Republic imperfectly but determinedly set us on a journey toward a more perfect Union. Wood's scholarship always repays our careful attention, and 
this incisive new book joins the large company of his invaluable contributions to understanding America's complexities and contradictions." -- Jon Meacham, author of 
The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels\n"No one has done more to teach us about the origins of American constitutionalism than Gordon S. Wood. Now, at a moment when we are trembling over the strength of our constitutional system, Wood gives us a deft shorthand account of how it all began. For anyone who wants to understand what made 
American constitutionalism such a vital political experiment, this is the place to start." -- Jack Rakove, author of 
Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience: The Radical Significance of the Free Exercise of Religion\n"Gordon Wood's 
Power and Liberty conveniently encapsulates more than a half-century of scholarship by the leading historian of American constitutionalism during the founding era and the early republic." -- William E. Nelson, author of 
E Pluribus Unum: How the Common Law Helped Unify and Liberate\nColonial America, 1607-1776\n"Gordon Wood has packed a lifetime of learning into this splendid little volume. In his capable hands, our founding charters, grown stale from familiarity, regain their freshness and allure as revolutionary documents that redefined our politics. Wood has an uncanny ability to project himself into 
the past and to report on his findings as if he had been a personal witness to those distant events." -- Ron Chernow, author of 
Alexander Hamilton\n"Masterful... No historian knows more about the founding years of the U.S. than Wood. In his latest, he once again demonstrates his characteristic clarity... A fresh, lucid distillation of Wood's vast learning about the origins of American government." 
-- 
Kirkus, Starred Review\n"The book has an elegiac quality along with his customary clarity." -- 
The New York Times\n"No living historian has done more to illuminate the origins of our constitutional heritage in the Revolutionary era."-- 
National Review\n"Man

Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution

Military

The Oxford History of the United States is by far the most respected multi volume history of our nation. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, two New York Times bestsellers, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. Now, in the newest volume in the series, one of America's most esteemed historians, Gordon S. Wood, offers a brilliant account of the early American Republic, ranging from 1789 and the beginning of the national government to the end of the War of 1812. As Wood reveals, the period was marked by tumultuous change in all aspects of American life in politics, society, economy, and culture. The men who founded the new government had high hopes for the future, but few of their hopes and dreams worked out quite as they expected. They hated political parties but parties nonetheless emerged. Some wanted the United States to become a great fiscal military state like those of Britain and France; others wanted the country to remain a rural agricultural state very different from the European states. Instead, by 1815 the United States became something neither group anticipated. Many leaders expected American culture to flourish and surpass that of Europe; instead it became popularized and vulgarized. The leaders also hope to see the end of slavery; instead, despite the release of many slaves and the end of slavery in the North, slavery was stronger in 1815 than it had been in 1789. Many wanted to avoid entanglements with Europe, but instead the country became involved in Europe's wars and ended up waging another war with the former mother country. Still, with a new generation emerging by 1815, most Americans were confident and optimistic about the future of their country. Named a New York Times Notable Book, Empire of Liberty offers a marvelous account of this pivotal era when America took its first unsteady steps as a new and rapidly expanding nation.

La revolución norteamericana es parte de la colección Breve Historia Universal, que ofrece una nueva visión de la historia de la humanidad.   Gordon Wood, un notable especialista en la historia de Estados Unidos, conduce a los lectores a través de las páginas de este libro con un lenguaje ameno y accesible.  Cuando Abraham Lincoln intentó definir la esencia de Estados Unidos se remontó a la revolución norteamericana. Sabía que la revolución no solo había sido el origen legal de la joven nación sino también de los valores y esperanzas del pueblo norteamericano. Los ideales y aspiraciones -el compromiso con la libertad, el constitucionalismo, el bienestar y la igualdad de los ciudadanos- que se plasmaron en la Constitución norteamericana provienen de la era revolucionaria. Lincoln también era consciente de que la revolución había convencido a los norteamericanos de ser un pueblo diferente, destinado a guiar el mundo hacia la libertad, espíritu que sigue hoy tan vivo como entonces.  Esta historia tiene todos los ingredientes para un buen drama: trece colonias insignificantes al otro lado del Atlántico se levantan contra el gobierno británico para convertirse, en poco más de tres décadas, en una enorme, industriosa, bulliciosa y poderosa república de cuatro millones de habitantes.  ENGLISH DESCRIPTION  The Revolution gave birth to whatever sense of nationhood and national purpose Americans have had. No doubt the story is a dramatic one: Thirteen insignificant colonies three thousand miles from the centers of Western civilization fought off British rule to become, in fewer than three decades, a huge, sprawling, rambunctious republic of nearly four million citizens. But the history of the American Revolution, like the history of the nation as a whole, ought not to be viewed simply as a story of right and wrong from which moral lessons are to be drawn.

Revolucion Norteamericana, La (Spanish Edition)

Religion & Spirituality

Random House Mondadori

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Books by WOOD, GORDON S.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by WOOD, GORDON S.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different

The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History

The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of the United States)

Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of the United States)

Revolucion Norteamericana, La (Spanish Edition)