The idea of America : reflections on the birth of the United States
/ Gordon S. Wood
- New York : Penguin Press , 2011
- 385 p. ; 22 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index
Rhetoric and reality in the American Revolution -- The legacy of Rome in the American Revolution -- Conspiracy and the paranoid style -- 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 -- 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.
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 --f rom ancient Rome to the European Enlightenment -- and the founders' attempts to forge an American democracy.
9780143121244
2010045829
United States . Constitution
Democracy----United States Republicanism----United States
United States---History---Revolution, 1775-1783 United States---Politics and government---1775-1783 United States---Politics and government---1783-1809