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Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different Paperback – May 29, 2007

by Gordon S. Wood (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 392 ratings
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A New York Times bestseller! 

"Of those writing about the founding fathers, [Gordon Wood] is quite simply the best." —The Philadelphia Inquirer

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 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 2017 release, Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. 
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin Books
  4. Publication date
    May 29, 2007
  5. Grade level
    12 and up
  6. Reading age
    18 years and up
  7. Dimensions
    8.44 x 5.52 x 0.73 inches
  8. ISBN-10
    0143112082
  9. ISBN-13
    978-0143112082
  10. Lexile measure
    1290L
  11. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Of those writing about the founding fathers, [Gordon Wood] is quite simply the best." —The Philadelphia Inquirer

About the Author

Gordon S. Wood is the Alva O. Way University Professor and professor of history at Brown University. His 1969 book The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787 received the Bancroft and John H. Dunning prizes, and was nominated for the National Book Award. His 1992 book The Radicalism of the American Revolution, won the Pulitzer Prize and the Emerson Prize. His 2009 book Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, won the 2010 New York Historical Society Prize in American History. Wood's other books include Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States, most recently, Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and he contributes regularly to The New Republic and The New York Review of Books.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; Reprint edition (May 29, 2007)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0143112082
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0143112082
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1290L
  • Grade level ‏ : ‎ 12 and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.44 x 5.52 x 0.73 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 392 ratings

About the author

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Gordon S. Wood

Gordon S. Wood

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Gordon S. Wood is Alva O. Way Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. His books include the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Radicalism of the American Revolution, the Bancroft Prize-winning The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, and The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History. He writes frequently for The New York Review of Books and The New Republic.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
392 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Doug
5.0 out of 5 stars The Philosophies of the Founding Fathers
Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2008
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This is a fairly short, but informative book on the ideas and values held by the different founding fathers. This book is highly recommended for readers interested in both intellectual history and the American Revolution.

The chapter on George Washington emphasizes how Washington went to great lengths to ensure that the American presidency would not have the powers of a monarch. This extreme caution played a key role in Washington's stepping down after two term limits, his warning against a standing army and his personal distress over whether he allowed himself to receive too much adulation or too many gifts as President. In this respect, George Washington is a remarkable man. The history of the United States would surely be substantially different, in terms of precedents set by Washington, had he not been so reluctant to wield executive power.

The chapter on Thomas Jefferson is also very good. Thomas Jefferson is obviously an incredibly accomplished intellectual and statesman. In addition to penning the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson also fought to abolish the laws of primogeniture (which automatically passed all estate property to the eldest son of every family) as well as helped establish the separation of church and state with the famous Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom. However, Wood's work suggests that Jefferson sometimes got too lost in ideals while failing to note how those ideas played out in practice. This shortcoming cannot be better illustrated than Jefferson's infamous "Adam and Eve" letter where he wrote the following to comment on the violence of the French Revolution:

"My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause, but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than as it now is."

The chapter on Alexander Hamilton will be unsettling to those who value free market capitalism. This chapter details how Hamilton was instrumental in establishing a national bank despite the opposition from John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In addition, Wood also details how Hamilton repudiated the benefits of unregulated markets and how he pushed to ban private banking. This chapter also details how Hamilton advocated an "American empire" over a "Democracy" and wanted a standing army contrary to the admonition against one in Washington's farewell address.

Although I will not detail them here, many of the other chapters in this book are also very good. The chapter on James Madison explores the alleged change in James Madison's values when he went from a co-author of the Federalist Papers to a staunch Democratic-Republican and concludes that there were no substantial changes in Madison's political philosophy. The chapter on Benjamin Franklin explores Wood's thesis that Benjamin Franklin was a longtime British loyalist who, up until his seventies, clung to the overly optimistic belief that the British crown was still generally good for the American colonies. The chapter on John Adams does delve into some of his impressive intellectual achievements, including his 'Defense of the Constitution of the United States'. However, my perception is this chapter understates the importance of John Adams in many of the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence, say compared to C. Bradley Thompson's 'John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty'. Overall, this is a great read for anyone seeking to understand the important moral and political ideas that the different Founders held.
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James Ferguson
5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling view of the men who shaped the United States
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2006
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Gordon Wood has distilled a large body of knowledge into cogent chapters on the founding fathers, bookended by essays that put their legacy into perspective. What he tries to do is peel away the layers of mythmaking and revisionist history that have taken place over the last two centuries and get to the heart of what made these "revolutionary characters" tick. What he reveals is that it was their strong sense of public character and duty that separated them from not only the mainstream of their time but the mainstream thought that prevails today.

Wood argues that you cannot separate the Founding Fathers from their era, they lived under a very different set of circumstances, and responded to these circumstances in their own unique ways. Since so much of their writings and journals have survived down through the ages,it makes these early statesmen prime subjects for psycho-analysis, but what Wood tries to do is take the position of an observer, looking into their conduct as one would in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

While a ranking of their conduct can more or less be inferred by the order of the chapters and the way Wood assesses their individual characters, the author stresses the pivotal roles each had in shaping the United States. Washington is paramount in the way he was able to balance all these competing forces in his presidential administration. He was a leader, if not necessarily a "decider," capable of weighing the opinions of his administration and reaching what he regarded as a just and due course for the nation. He may have lacked the intellectual abilities of Jefferson and Hamilton, or the judicial acumen of Adams, but he didn't seem to second guess his decisions, sticking by them and accepting the consequences like the gentleman he saw himself as. While this may have lent him a stiff air he was so respected in his day that the deification of his role in the American Revolution had already begun by the time of the Constitutional assemblies. If he was reluctant to assume the role of President, Wood argues it was because he did not wish to become king, which was the way many leading figures were projecting him at the time.

Franklin and Adams were less concerned with how they were viewed by others, but they too cultivated public characters that served them well throughout the revolution. Both saw politics as a form of theatre, and as such perception was as important as the reality of their actions. Franklin seemed to be the more optimistic of the two, whereas Adams was deeply worried about the balance of government, something which Wood says gave Adams no rest throughout his lifetime.

This could also be said of James Madison, which Wood devotes an excellent chapter to, showing how he was misinterpreted both in his time by his fellow statesmen, and later by historians. It is largely viewed that Madison underwent a major change of heart in the 1790's from that of an ardent Federalist to an anti-Federalist over the role the federal government should play in the United States. But, Wood argues Madison never saw the federal government as anything more than an adjucator, resolving state disputes, not governing over them. Here is where Madison differed sharply from Hamilton, who believed strenuously in a strong federal government, to the point of being an authoritarian regime, which in many ways the early Federal government was.

Wood even devotes a chapter to Thomas Paine, the most democratic-minded of all the early statesman, and perhaps the most "revolutionary." Paine's role in the revolution is often overlooked because he did not serve in the federal government. However, his pamphlet "The Rights of Man," was one of the key documents of the revolution and perhaps the most far-reaching.

In a time when many persons, both historians and politicians, are reassessing the Founding Fathers, it is refreshing to have a book like this, which strips away all the attempts to make these "revolutionary characters" into mythological figures and views them within their 18th century context.
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David B. Posner
4.0 out of 5 stars a good series of stories about the fathers of the constitution
Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2023
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A very interesting series of biographies about the important people of the founding fathers of the country. Got a bit too much into the weeds but had a lot of things I never knew about these people. Each chapter is one person. I recommend it.
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mike fitsko
5.0 out of 5 stars Our Gloriously Unique Founding Fathers
Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2023
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Great read...refreshing insight into the lives and thinking of the men who sought to make America independent from Great Britain even though they fundamentally ignored the issues of slavery and womens' rights.
Their thinking focused on men of property whom they considered "gentlemen".
One person found this helpful
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Joan Militello
5.0 out of 5 stars A Quick Read, Yet Full of Insight
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2022
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I have read so much about these individuals over many years, since college. I thought I knew them, like many of us may. But Professor Wood has moved past the obvious to provide a thoughtful and balanced portrayal of the men behind the history books; reminding us that they really were just men after all. And yet, if these “ordinary” men could construct a democracy lasting for nearly three hundred years, one wonders what we ourselves might do, if we used our intellect and confidently engaged our passion for change??
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Top reviews from other countries

Griselda
5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 2, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book explains why the founders of the USA were one off people and why they can never be duplicated. I had never realized that they literally created the infrastructure of a new government and that it took 50 years to hammer it home. This story could probably fill a library, but this book condenses it to manageable proportions. Well worth a read.
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Bernard O'Donnell
1.0 out of 5 stars VERY NEGATIVE
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 18, 2019
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This was one of the few times when I couldn't continue reading a book. The achievements were glossed over. Very poor.
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