Power and Liberty
Constitutionalism in the American Revolution
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4.4 • 5 Ratings
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gordon S. Wood elucidates the debates over the founding documents of the United States.
The 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.
In 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.
Here 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pulitzer winner Wood (Friends Divided) surveys the "politics and constitution-making" of the Revolutionary era in this astute if somewhat familiar history based on a series of lectures he gave at Northwestern University in 2019. Discussing the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and other foundational documents, Wood finds that the revolution was much more "radical" than many of the Founders anticipated, because it released the "aspirations and interests" of thousands of "middling, commercially minded people." He also claims that revolutionary rhetoric, which cast dependence on England as a form of enslavement, contributed to a rapid decline in indentured white servitude, which in turn made Black slavery "more conspicuous than it had been before," and put American slave owners on the defensive for the first time. Though 19th-century abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison labeled the Constitution "a covenant with death," he had little understanding of the circumstances in which it was written, according to Wood, who credits the emancipation of slaves in Northern states after the revolution with setting the stage for the abolition of slavery in "the whole of the New World." Wood has made these arguments before, but they're restated lucidly and concisely here. The result is a welcome distillation of an influential career.
