Over the past few years, a number of historians have written about the first years of the American experience. In most cases, they either rave about the actions of the patriots: How this was unlike any other time in world history--when being bullied, it is necessary to take the defensive. Or, they take a much more negative view: This whole event should not be blown out of proportion. It just happened to be the right time and place for something like this to occur. Just look at what did happen-or actually what did not happen. Slavery, sexism and imperialism continued, just under another guise. So what? In The American Revolution written in 2002, Gordon S. Wood, one of the most knowledgeable writers on this time period, takes a much more realistic-and pragmatic-approach. Unlike so many who now write about the America's past, he does not have any hidden agenda or political leaning. He has no desire to be one of those historians who emphasizes the faults of thi
Wood may say that he did not want to fall too far on either side of the line when describing the actions that took place, but he gives himself away by taking a very complicated issue and distilling it into something that is of interest-almost as if it were fiction. That is one of the best points of this book, in fact. Even those who do not have the patience for a lot of dates and specifics can get into the way the political, social, economic issues overlap and impact one another. He shows how no one could have actually seen how this movie was going to end until the last line. It took on its own personality. That is why no one, regardless of their historic viewpoint can easily claim that anyone held the reigns. On an ongoing basis, people changed their minds on how they saw things. If it is indeed true that one can learn from history, the moral of the story is that perhaps no one knows the moral until the story is already written.
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