![]() ![]() ![]() Their classical republicanism stressed benevolence and government by an enlightened elite. Wood pictures colonial society as overwhelmingly deferential-to king, to family patriarch, and to aristocrats-with ``personal obligations and reciprocity that ran through the whole society.'' But patriots such as Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin, aspiring to become gentlemen, resented this entrenched order of patronage and kinship. But from now on it will be hard to argue that the rebellion was a genteel event that left fundamental institutions unscathed. Wood's contention that the Revolution was ``the most radical and far-reaching event in American history'' may stretch the point (did it really have more of an impact than the Civil War?). ![]() ed., The Rising Glory of America, 1971) impressively argues that it was anything but conservative. Yet this sparkling analysis from Wood (History/Brown Univ. ![]() Perhaps, as is often noted, the American Revolution was not as convulsive or transforming as its French and Russian counterparts. ![]()
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