New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gordon S. Wood elucidates the debates over the founding documents of the United States, featuring a new afterword reflecting on the 250th anniversary of American independence.The half century extending from the imperial crisis between Britain and its colonies in the 1760s to the early decades of the new
republic of the United States was the greatest and most creative era of constitutionalism in American history, and perhaps in the world. During these decades, Americans explored and debated all aspects of politics and constitutionalism--the nature of power, liberty, representation,
rights, the division of authority between different spheres of government, sovereignty, judicial authority, and written constitutions. The results of these issues produced institutions that have lasted for over two centuries.In this book, eminent historian Gordon S. Wood distills a lifetime of work on constitutional innovations during the Revolutionary era. In concise form, he illuminates critical events in the nation's founding, ranging from the imperial debate that led
to the Declaration of Independence to the revolutionary state constitution making in 1776 and the creation of the Federal Constitution in 1787. Among other topics, he discusses slavery and
constitutionalism, the emergence of the judiciary as one of the major tripartite institutions of government, the demarcation between public and private, and the formation of states' rights. In a new afterword, he addresses issues of constitutionalism in light of the semiquincentennial in 2026.Here is an immensely readable synthesis of the key era in the making of the history of the United States, presenting timely insights on the Constitution and the nation's foundational
legal and political documents.
Industry Reviews
"This book distills the core insights of a long career into a single small volume that grabs the reader's interest from the first page and never lets go." -- Jessica T. Mathews, Foreign Affairs
"With characteristic insight, sobriety, and wisdom, Gordon Wood had given us much to consider in this thoughtful study of how the framers of the American Republic imperfectly but determinedly set us on a journey toward a more perfect Union. Wood's scholarship always repays our careful attention, and this incisive new book joins the large company of his invaluable contributions to understanding America's complexities and contradictions." -- Jon Meacham, author
of The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
"No one has done more to teach us about the origins of American constitutionalism than Gordon S. Wood. Now, at a moment when we are trembling over the strength of our constitutional system, Wood gives us a deft shorthand account of how it all began. For anyone who wants to understand what made American constitutionalism such a vital political experiment, this is the place to start." -- Jack Rakove, author of Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience: The Radical
Significance of the Free Exercise of Religion
"Gordon Wood's Power and Liberty conveniently encapsulates more than a half-century of scholarship by the leading historian of American constitutionalism during the founding era and the early republic." -- William E. Nelson, author of E Pluribus Unum: How the Common Law Helped Unify and Liberate Colonial America, 1607-1776
"Gordon Wood has packed a lifetime of learning into this splendid little volume. In his capable hands, our founding charters, grown stale from familiarity, regain their freshness and allure as revolutionary documents that redefined our politics. Wood has an uncanny ability to project himself into the past and to report on his findings as if he had been a personal witness to those distant events." -- Ron Chernow, author of Alexander Hamilton
"Masterful... No historian knows more about the founding years of the U.S. than Wood. In his latest, he once again demonstrates his characteristic clarity... A fresh, lucid distillation of Wood's vast learning about the origins of American government."
--Kirkus, Starred Review
"The book has an elegiac quality along with his customary clarity." --The New York Times
"No living historian has done more to illuminate the origins of our constitutional heritage in the Revolutionary era."--National Review
"Many historians view Wood as the greatest living scholar of the American Revolution. This book distills the core insights of a long career into a single smallvolume that grabs the reader's interest from the first page and never lets go."--Foreign Affairs
"This wonderful collection of essays offers many delights for the specialist and
non-specialist alike...to borrow an admiring line from one of Wood's own reviews, 'There is no other historian in the country who could have written this book.'" --The New Criterion
