04.15.2009+-+GQ

=__ Guiding Questions for Gordon Wood's //The American Revolution// __=

 **The discussion will focus on pages 91-166 and center around your description and evaluation of Wood's thesis that the American Revolution was:** 1. a social //and// political revolution. 2. radical and transformative.



**You may find the following guiding questions helpful as you evaluate Wood's thesis:** 1. In Interpreting the Founding, Gibson argues that "Scholarship on the American Founding is further complicated by the political agendas and contemporary concerns that often drive it." What, if any, "political agendas and contemporary concerns" drive Wood's scholarship?

2. Wood argues that the republicanism of the American Revolution was "a radical ideology - as radical for the eighteenth century as Marxism was to be for the nineteenth century." Given the historical context of the eighteenth century, is this a fair characterization of the American Revolution?

3. How was the American Revolution transformative and which groups enjoyed the greatest transformations?