Rather, the historian’s task, he writes, is to examine why they “thought and behaved as they did,” understanding that ideas, while important, are subordinate to passions driving social change, that they are always constrained by the facts on the ground and frequently entail consequences that no one, not even their sponsors, could foresee. Wood rejects the temptation to take sides among history’s combatants. The author discloses his own methodology, of particular value to those interested in historiography, and also important to the general reader looking for reliable information about the nation’s origins. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, 2009, etc.) asserts, the Revolution “is the most important event in American history, bar none,” it follows that arguments over its ideology, the doctrinal core of the nation’s creation, become critical, not just to contemporary politicians and activists looking to the past for legitimacy, but even-and more regrettably-to generations of historians bent on imposing their own era’s preoccupations. A Pulitzer and Bancroft Prize–winning historian offers deeply contemplative essays from a career devoted to studying the Revolutionary Era.

The idea of america gordon wood