Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different
Author: Gordon S Wood
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.
Revolutionary Characters 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.
Gordon Wood's wondrous accomplishment here is to bring these men and their times down to earth and within our reach, revealing to 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.
The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani
Shrewdly argued ... powerful.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Of those writing about the founding fathers, [Gordon Wood] is quite simply the best.
The Weekly Standard
If we can't turn back the clock, at least we can enjoy a master historian's refreshing reassessment of seven men whose legacies live on.... It has the integrity and, yes, the eccentricity of the Founders it celebrates.
The New York Times Book Review - Jon Meacham
Illuminating ... poignant.
The Washington Post Book World
Elegant ... absorbing ... from one of our leading scholars of the American Revolution.
The Washington Post - Robert Middlekauff
At several points in this volume, most notably the essays on Washington and the epilogue, Wood argues that the founders contributed unwittingly to a democratic and egalitarian society that they never wanted. This is another point in favor of the history Wood provides in this splendid collection: He relates what he would have us believe, explains much of what was done and leaves us with an ironical appreciation of the founders' achievement.
The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani
This volume is at its most powerful when Mr. Wood uses his enormous knowledge of the era to situate his subjects within a historical and political context, stripping away accretions of myths and commentary to show the reader how Washington, say, or Franklin (the subject of a 2004 book by the author) were viewed by their contemporaries. He explains how the reputations of these men waxed and waned over the years, and how changing ideological fashions in history writing have continually remade their images: most notably, how the current academic focus on gender, class and race issues has marginalized the study of politics and political leaders and contributed to the vogue for debunking "elite white males."
Publishers Weekly
Bancroft and Pulitzer Prize-winner Wood suggests that behind America's current romance with the founding fathers is a critique of our own leaders, a desire for such capable and disinterested leadership as was offered by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Provocatively, Wood argues that the very egalitarian democracy Washington and Co. created all but guarantees that we will "never again replicate the extraordinary generation of the founders." In 10 essays, most culled from the New York Review of Books and the New Republic, Wood offers miniature portraits of James Madison, Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Paine. The most stimulating chapter is devoted to John Adams, who died thinking he would never get his due in historians' accounts of the Revolution; for the most part, he was right. This piece is an important corrective; Adams, says Wood, was not only pessimistic about the greed and scrambling he saw in his fellow Americans, he was downright prophetic-and his countrymen, then and now, have never wanted to reckon with his critiques. Wood is an elegant writer who has devoted decades to the men about whom he is writing, and taken together, these pieces add perspective to the founding fathers cottage industry. (May 22) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Presenting a series of essays he has published previously and heavily revised here, Pulitzer Prize winner Wood focuses on the Founding Fathers, whose achievements he notes are still so highly ranked by Americans today. Wood is at his best when writing about George Washington and Aaron Burr, noting with regard to the former that his character was perfectly suited to his time: his backing of the proposed federal Constitution was crucial, and he governed with "no precedents to follow." Wood crystallizes his own opinion of Burr by defining him as "a self-assured aristocrat using his public office in every way he could to make money." This book also includes essays on Jefferson, Franklin, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, and, in perhaps the book's one flaw, John Adams. Wood makes much of John Adams's pessimism about the future of the country while glossing over his real contributions to the independence movement and his writing of the Massachusetts Constitution, which is still in use today. All in all, this is a very readable book; recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/06.]-Karen Sutherland, Bartlett P.L., IL Law & Crime Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-There is no shortage of new titles assessing the character and contributions of America's founders, but this excellent book is particularly well suited to high school students. Wood has selected eight remarkable men to profile: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Paine, and Aaron Burr. After describing how their reputations have undergone changes through the years, sometimes honored, sometimes reviled, the author discusses the men in terms of their own times. A chapter is devoted to each one, but these essays are not simple biographical sketches. Wood establishes his subjects' social and economic backgrounds, but then focuses on their personalities and philosophies, revealed through their correspondence. Trying to establish a meritocracy during an age of aristocracy was a daunting process, and the founders often became one another's adversaries. Their shrewd and sometimes caustic observations showed the difficulties involved in coming to a consensus on vital issues. Insecurities, humor, brilliance, and bewilderment abounded, all described in a flowing, lively style. Readers will gain a new understanding and appreciation of these men, and may even be inspired to read some of the comprehensive biographies recommended by the author.-Kathy Tewell, Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
In this collection, Pulitzer Prize-winner Wood (History/Brown Univ.; The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, 2004, etc.) elegantly examines the meaning of the Founding Fathers for our time and-an infinitely harder thing to discern-for their own. Obsessed with race, class and gender, today's historians are often more intent on dehumanizing rather than simply debunking, the Founders, Wood notes. Without losing sight of the revolutionaries' often significant faults, he offers a welcome, if ironic, reminder of one of their lasting achievements: creating an egalitarian polity that had no place for aristocrats like themselves again. His meditations on the Founders' relationship to the Enlightenment and the creation of American public opinion bracket profiles of six revolutionaries who have entered the American pantheon and two (Thomas Paine and Aaron Burr) who have not. The author typically begins by discussing how different generations viewed a particular figure, then attempting to ferret out the reasons for that revolutionary's conduct. For instance, he shows that Benjamin Franklin's image as folksy self-made American is at odds with the Philadelphian's pre-revolutionary desire to become a gentleman in London. Above all, the Founders adhered to a "classical ideal of disinterested leadership" that fit their notions of character. This ideal suited a meritocracy such as their own, which broke with the English tradition of a corrupt hereditary aristocracy, but it was out of place in a rapidly evolving America that thrust obscure ordinary men into power. Wood explains his figures and their times in fresh ways, noting, for example, how Madison's frustrations in the Virginia legislature inspiredhim to curb state power at the Constitutional Convention, and why the Democratic-Republican opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 fostered the notion of truth as "the creation of many voices and many minds."Bracing, clear-eyed perspectives on why we are unlikely to see such a politically creative period again.
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Evaluation: A Systematic Approach
Author: Peter H Rossi
The Fifth Edition of this bestselling book has been thoughtfully revised to make it the most useful and comprehensive resource in evaluation research today. New to this edition is: more coverage on meta-analysis, particularly in regard to its use in design and modification of programme intervention; revised and expanded coverage on programme monitoring and management; new chapters on quasi-experimental impact assessments; assessment of full-coverage programmes including a comparison of the differences in these procedures; and more examples and boxed exhibits of local and state evaluations.
The effective organization of the Fourth Edition has been retained, mirroring the way evaluation is practised - from diagnosis of a problem with a social programme through to the final stages of measuring and analyzing a specific programme.
Booknews
New edition of a time-tested text/reference first published in 1979, providing an introduction to the broad set of research activities essential for designing, implementing, and appraising the utility of social programs. Chapters cover diagnostic procedures, tailoring evaluations, program monitoring, impact assessment, assessment of full-coverage programs, measuring efficiency, and the social context of evaluation. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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