early 19th century. Wood builds his argument by supporting his claims with personal accounts as well as using documents of that time period. It is pieces of evidence such as these that gives Wood a particular insight into the revolution. This insight at first glance would be hard to deny. However, Wood’s lack of concrete evidence gives historians a chance to critique his account. Wood seems to place a lot of confidence on individual historical accounts of the revolution. Not only does he rely on these individual accounts, but the people he relies on fall under the same race, gender, and social class. Barbara Clark Smith, a curator at the Smithsonian when Wood’s book was published, comments on Wood’s narrow-minded accounts, “….to a striking extent Wood keeps ‘the Revolution’ in the hands of the elite. It is not simply that elite and privileged sources are the ones Wood generally cites, the ones whose opinions he trusts.” (Smith 3). As Smith points out the problem with relying on limited sources when writing a book is the one-sided story you almost always get. Smith later points out in her review that Wood not only relies on a limited source base, but he also neglects to mention other racial and gender forces that played an important role in the revolution. Smith writes on Wood’s absent account to abolish slavery, “Wood’s revolution takes too much credit. It slights the agency of those who did struggle to end slavery and makes it difficult to comprehend or even credit those who opposed Smith pg.4 abolition.” (Smith 5). As Smith points out there are obvious neglecting aspects to Wood’s book. It is important to note that Wood’s intent on leaving out such forces is to get at the overall ideas and ideologies behind the revolution, and not so much the individual players of the revolution. The next problem with Wood’s acco...
