Wednesday, January 23, 2013
thoughts on G. Wood
So far I have only done pre-reading of "The Radicalism of the American Revolution" to find what Gordon Wood's main arguments are. He argues that "white American colonists were not an oppressed people; they had no crushing imperial chains to throw off"(page 4). Our Revolution was that of a change of government and not of social upheaval. What I find interesting however is that according to Wood, what makes the Revolution radical is the changes in relationships "that bound people to each other", caused by the changes in government after the Revolution. He also argues that the Revolution altered American's "understanding of history, knowledge, and truth." While as student I have come across this idea anthropologically many times for many different events, people, etc I am interested to see how he combines all of the aspects that he argues makes the American Revolution, radical (revolutionary?).
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Good start. Can I ask what you mean by "anthropologically"?
ReplyDeleteI could have just as easily said that it occurred through out history. But by saying anthropologically I mean that throughout time and people there are events or circumstances that do just what wood argues happened in the colonies, the Revolution changed the very understanding that Americans have of knowledge, history and truth. For example in my anthropology course we looked at the Spanish and their interaction with the Mayans and Incas. Because of the end result of these interactions what we know of the ancient warriors only comes from the Spanish perspective, they controlled the narrative which in tern has defined what we know of the Spanish's time in Mexico, etc. I guess it was a long way for me to say "winners write the story" which is something we see throughout history.
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