Gordon S. Wood's The Radicalism Of The American Revolution

In Gordon S. Wood’s novel, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Wood challenges an idea produced by many consensus historians over many years. That idea being the American Revolution was just a colonial fight for independence from our mother country. Instead, Wood believes the revolution as not that, but a genuine social transformation. While one class of people did not overthrow another, the social relationships of our country were permanently changed for the rest of time. One-way Wood support his idea in the early chapters is by describing Colonial America as a pre-modern society. Wood theorizes the reason many historians fail to see the social changes within the American Revolution is because they fail to see Colonial America as a pre-modern society. Wood implies this idea through his narration:
In a land where modern society necessities had not been established, the family household was the place for “teaching the young, disciplining the wayward, and caring for the poor and insane” (Wood 44). Family was a very big role player in Colonial America’s society. Enlarging families we such a big focus to the society, “nearly 40 percent of all families of a villages were related to one another”(Wood 45). Inheritance also played a major key factor into the societal lives of many colonies. Using English laws as a source, the males would usually inherit any land previous owned by the previous male family member. However, these inheritance practices followed what had been considered a pre-modern tradition of “favored heir plus burdens”. While the inheritance may seemed great at first to the heir, the burdens followed with this inheritance (elderly in, less favored siblings, etc.) would be very heavy upon the heir. Women had it the worst in this Patriarchal society, with the idea of any independence for them is immediately thrown out the