![]() He begins by describing the old "civic republican" ideology that motivated the early revolutionaries (where government was composed of 3 distinct estates (not branches), focused almost entirely on the legislature, and run by disinterested public men of virtue), and then discusses the rise of a new, modern conception of politics (where separation of powers was paramount, and all sovereignty rested not in the "rulers" but in the people). Wood tries to show how an entirely new way of political thought was created and spread in the ten turbulent years after independence, not just among a few thinkers, but among the whole American people. But this is kind of the genius of the work. A typical paragraph may contain phrases from five papers, 2 diaries, and James Madison, all attributed only in the footnotes. ![]() Most of the innumerable quotes come from a barely distinguished mass of newspapers and private correspondence. It's an intellectual history of sorts, except there are practically no individual characters or thinkers. This was not exactly a school book, but one of my teachers kept recommending it so frequently and so heartily that I had to give it a try, even if its not exactly in my field. ![]() ![]() One of the best books on American government I've ever read. ![]()
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