false 3113 3 Even when the greatness of the founding fathers isn't being debunked, it is a quality that feels very far away from us indeed: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Co. seem as distant as marble faces carved high into a mountainside. We may marvel at the fact that fate placed such a talented cohort of political leaders in that one place, the east coast of North America, in colonies between Virginia and Massachusetts, and during that one fateful period, but that doesn't really help us explain it or teach us the proper lessons to draw from it. What did make the founders different? Now, the incomparable Gordon Wood has written a book that shows us, among many other things, just how much character did matter. <br><br> <i>Revolutionary Characters</i> offers a series of brilliantly illuminating studies of the men who came to be known as the founding fathers. Each life is considered in the round, but the thread that binds the work together and gives it the cumulative power of a revelation is this idea of character as a lived reality for these men. For these were men, Gordon Wood shows, who took the matter of character very, very seriously. They were the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made, men who understood the arc of lives, as of nations, as being one of moral progress. They saw themselves as comprising the world's first true meritocracy, a natural aristocracy as opposed to the decadent Old World aristocracy of inherited wealth and station. <br><br> Gordon Wood's wondrous accomplishment here is to bring these men and their times down to earth and within our reach, showing us just who they were and what drove them. In so doing, he shows us that although a lot has changed in two hundred years, to an amazing degree the virtues these founders defined for themselves are the virtues we aspire to still. 407988 18 5 2006 Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different total:214|5:35|4:96|3:68|2:14|1:1| 214 792 400 61 4 5 false false Sat Dec 13 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Sep 11 03:20:38 -0700 2008 Mon Dec 15 03:22:20 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Feb 21 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Dec 15 04:58:33 -0800 2008 Sun Mar 01 10:58:42 -0800 2009 1 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Jan 05 06:12:28 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 05 06:27:58 -0800 2008
A common lament since the days of the founding fathers has been ¨Where have such leaders gone?¨ This book argues that these men were the product of a unique period of ...more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Jun 21 12:32:52 -0700 2007 Thu Jun 21 12:38:16 -0700 2007 After reading it, though, I am amazed that America has become what we are today--and that it took only 'four score and seven years' before we erupted into Civil War! --the Founders were as different and at times cant...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jun 22 11:00:11 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 22 11:02:26 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Apr 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 13 09:58:14 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 17 06:16:32 -0700 2009 The Radicalism of the American Revolution and the 1970 Bancroft Prize for The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787.

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Dif...more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Mar 13 15:44:42 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 23 13:51:54 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Dec 25 11:38:55 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 25 11:57:43 -0800 2008 For instance, Washington was treated as if he were a king because the new republic had no ot...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Apr 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 24 21:37:12 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 24 21:43:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Oct 28 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 24 09:37:10 -0700 2009 Sun Nov 01 15:58:38 -0800 2009 About halfway way through this series of profiles of the major founders which were published separately and have now been put together in this easily readable collection.

OK, so just wrote a whole goddamn review of this...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:39:56 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:39:56 -0800 2009 Distinguished Brown University historian Gordon S. Wood has examined Revolutionary politics in The Creation of the American Republic (Bancroft Prize, 1970) and The Radicalism of the American Revolution (Pulitzer Prize, 1993). Collected from writing he did for the New York Review of Books and the Ne...

more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon May 05 21:54:58 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 18 21:22:33 -0700 2008 I would have given five stars to the first four chapters of this book. Unfortunately, ...more...]]> 3 0 true false Sun Mar 30 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Feb 18 18:25:38 -0800 2008 Mon Jun 09 17:55:55 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 05 23:32:02 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 05 23:38:08 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Mar 26 20:10:58 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 20:14:55 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Feb 28 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 25 12:06:29 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 28 10:44:58 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 06 13:26:12 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 06 13:26:56 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Jun 01 07:55:51 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 04:45:43 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 21 06:35:41 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 21 06:37:49 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Fri Dec 26 08:30:00 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 26 08:30:00 -0800 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=418841