Gordon Wood’s Radicalism of the American Revolution is a book that extensively covers the origin and ideas preceding the American Revolution. Wood’s account of the Revolution goes beyond the history and timeline of the war and offers a new encompassing look inside the social ideology and economic forces of the war. Wood explains in his book that America went through a two-stage progression to break away from the Monarchical rule of the English. He believes the pioneering revolutionaries were rooted in the belief of an American Republic. However, it was the radical acceptance of democracy that was the final step toward independence. The transformation between becoming a Republic, to ultimately becoming a democracy, is where Wood’s evaluation of the revolution differs from other historians. He contributes such a transformation to the social and economic factors that faced the colonists. While Gordon Wood creates a persuasive argument in his book, he does however neglect to consider other contributing factors of the revolution. It is these neglected factors that provide opportunity for criticism of his book. The overall feeling one gets from reading Wood’s book is that republicanism was not a radical concept to the American colonists. Wood believed the American colonists had a deep- rooted concept of Republicanism that existed before revolutionary ideas were conceived. The idea of republicanism could be seen in the colonial belief in independence and self-sacrifice. These principles were the founding forces that led to the beginning of the revolution. Wood would seem to believe that these founding forces were not as radical as the transformation to democratic thought. It is here that Wood points out the “uncontrolla... ... middle of paper ... ... social and economic forces with those of traditional forces his book would have a better claim on legitimacy. Gordon Wood gives an interesting insight into the Revolution. Overall, I find Wood’s argument to be persuasive and refreshing. There is little doubt that the forces that Wood proclaims as significant in his history of the Revolution are important. However, it is this same concentration on non-traditional forces that leads to my criticism of his book. Wood should not have focused entirely on his commonly overlooked social and economic forces. Instead, he should have combined his insight along with the insight of other traditional forces to give his book a well-rounded theory behind the American Revolution. Work Cited Gordon S. Wood. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Vintage; Reprint edition. March 2, 1993
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Show MoreOne of the strongest women scientist/astronomer was born in 1818 as Maria Mitchell whom led an unbelievable life and had an incredible discovery. Maria Mitchell was born when women were not given the opportunity to vote nor did women have the same equal rights as men did, but given her circumstances of her father being a principal, founding his own school and being a distant family member of Benjamin Franklin she was given the same rights as the men did. Given a few obstacles she led an extraordinary life and became the first woman in America to work as an astronomer professionally, which she than later received an award personally from King Frederick VII, for her work and discovery.
...iography”). As well as being a powerful beginning to opening women’s potential into science, she would later befriend Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, amongst other women rights leaders.
The Roman empire was a very large and successful empire, although like many things it had to come to an end. The three primary reasons that had most contributed to Rome's fall is foreign invasions, military weakness , and weak leadership.
Many revolutions have taken place throughout history, ranging from the unremarkable to the truly memorable, such as the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution and the American Revolution. Through an examination of the social, cultural, economic and political causes of the American Revolution, an exploration of key arguments both for and against the American Revolution, and an analysis of the social, cultural, economic and political changes brought about by the American Revolution it can be demonstrated unequivocally that the American Revolution was indeed truly revolutionary.
One of the main reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire was the military struggles they encountered. The footsoldiers in the army were lazy and refused to do drills, which then led to their armour seeming to be too heavy to wear so that was abandoned as well (Doc B). Because they didn't use their armour anymore, they fought without protection and many soldiers died and this eventually led to a decrease in the size of Rome's military (Docs B and C)....
In Gordon S. Wood’s The Radicalism of the American Revolution, a new, postmodern take on what the word ‘radicalism’ really means. He focuses on not only the political and social effects of the American Revolution, but also on its lasting contributions to American society. Wood uses a fresh- but still knowledgeable- point of view while making his claims, and uses examples to support these claims. The biggest weakness of the source is that it is a secondary source that was created over two decades after the American Revolution ended, creating a lack of firsthand primary knowledge given in the
Rome was one of the greatest ancient empires, however, it suffered a tragic fall. Rome could’ve lasted if only the odds were in its favor, but they weren't, dunh dunh duhn (piano).The Roman empire fell because of political instability, military problems, and natural disasters.
Haiti is drenched in poverty, corruption, and lack of education. Due to these aspects Haiti is “the least developed country in the western hemisphere”. With only one-third of suitable land...
Rome was an ancient empire, and a powerful one, at that. It grew from a small village started by two brothers, Romulus and Remus, to a republic. Eventually, it became a huge empire controlled by emperors that lead Rome to being more impressive. But, questions still remain: Why did Rome fall? What event or series of events contributed to the decline of Rome?
The most important reason for the Fall of Rome is by far the Laziness the Romans had obtained after a couple centuries of being extremely strong and powerful. The romans’ downfall started to make an impact when some of the littlest things Romans stopped caring about began to make a big difference. “It is easy to get lazy. The evidence for this was a love of luxury, a decline in the quality
Before the quake, Haiti was already in a troublesome condition and it had be suffering for more than 10 years since people landed there. Less the 60 percent people who lived in Haiti barely accessed clean water. They don’t even have a national building code and more than half of Haitians society was living in hardship. In fact, the reason why people in Haiti suffered so much is because they didn’t have a lot of money. You could tell by just looking at the shape it was in before the quake. If things were this incompetent, then just think about the education level the kids were getting. Its education organization was already disordered. About only 25% of the schools in Haiti were free or were inexpensive and
University of Alabama, Department of Physics and Astronomy, 4,000 Years of Women in Science. Dec. 2002 2 Nov. 2003 http://crux.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/newintro.html.
There are many reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire, and all of them are related to one another. The Christian religion that was adopted by the Romans made them more passive people than before, which in turn made it difficult against attackers. Money was being used for lavish parties for the governs which could have been used for the people. The people became lazy and glutinous and didn't care about the republic.
The economics of Haiti has deceased in the last 4 years after the devastating earthquake that struck it 4 years ago. The Haiti economy has become very poor and one of the poorest country in the south, Central America and Caribbean region making it ranked 24 out of 29 countries in this area and its overall score is below average. Haiti’s economic freedom is 48.1 making it economy the 151st freest country while in the last several years Declines in the management of government spending, freedom from corruption, and labor freedom make its overall score 2.6 points lower than last year. Recovering from the disastrous earthquake in 2010 with the support of the U.S. recovering efforts “Haiti’s post-earthquake reconstruction efforts continue, assisted by substantial aid from the international community. Governing institutions remain weak and inefficient, and overall progress has not been substantial. The parliament has not renewed the mandate of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, which had been tasked with overseeing reconstruction efforts but was unpopular.”( .heritage.org). The open market of Haiti trade weighted to be 2.1 this is because the lack of tariffs hamper the trade freedom of Haiti. Foreign investors are given national treatment but the investment is small and the financial sector is remained underdeveloped and does not provide any adequate support.
In 2010 a 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti. The earthquake left hundreds of thousands of people stranded without homes. It considered being the country’s worst earthquake in 200 years. It had destroyed so many buildings, homes, and office buildings. Haiti has always been a target for hurricanes and disasters of the ocean. Haiti is still trying to recover from all the devastations. Due to the earthquake, many Haitians live in run down homes. Four years later, some areas look the same after the earthquake hit the country.