Gordon S Wood

"From the great historian of the American Revolution, New York Times-bestselling and Pulitzer-winning Gordon Wood, comes a majestic dual biography of two of America's most enduringly fascinating figures, whose partnership helped birth a nation, and whose subsequent falling out did much to fix its course. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds, or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist...

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...

"This book deals with important issues of constitutionalism in the American Revolution. It ranges 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. It includes a discussion of slavery and constitutionalism, the emergence of the judiciary as one of the major tripartite institutions of government, and the demarcation between...

History is to society what memory is to the individual: without it, we don't know who we are, and we can't make wise decisions about where we should be going. But while the nature of memory is a constant, the nature of history has changed radically over the past forty years, for good but also for ill. Historian Wood examines the sea change in the field, offers insight into what historians do, and how they can stumble. New currents of thought have...

" ... includes the complete newspaper exchange between Novanglus (Adams) and Massachusettensis (loyalist Daniel Leonard), as well as extensive diary excerpts and characteristically frank personal letters"--Jacket.

"Traces John Adams' career from his leading role in the debate over independence ... to his tireless efforts to establish the fledgling government of the United States and supply its army in the field, to his crucial diplomatic service in Europe ... It includes his highly influential 1776 pamphlet Thoughts on Government, dozens of his characteristically frank and revealing personal letters ... extensive diary excerpts."--Jacket.