How Radical Was the American Revolution?

Historians disagree sharply about how revolutionary the American Revolution was. Some stress continuity: the same elites governed before and after, property was not redistributed, and slavery survived. Others point to deep change. In 1926 J.

Franklin Jameson described the Revolution as a social movement that abolished feudal-style inheritance laws such as primogeniture and entail. In The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991), Gordon Wood argued that it destroyed a hierarchical, monarchical society based on patronage and deference, creating a more egalitarian, commercial democracy.

Critics replied that his account underplays those excluded, especially enslaved people, Native Americans and women. Brinton's model also suggests the American Revolution stopped early, never reaching a radical phase. A balanced answer distinguishes kinds of change: modest in redistributing wealth, but significant in ideas about authority and equality.