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- [00:00]
Michael Haddam
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- [01:04]
Martin
This is a special bonus episode of History as it happens. Gordon Wood, the great historian of the American Revolution and early Republic, died on Sunday, June 7, after he was hit by a car in East Providence, Rhode Island. He was 92. As the new York Times obituary aptly puts it, Wood was described by fellow historians as doing as much as anyone to deepen understanding and change perceptions of the forces and events that led to the birth of the United States. What a loss. What a shame that Gordon Wood did not live to see the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Here he is in 2021 at an event at the Museum of the American Revolution, as he stayed active well into his elder years, talking about the enduring meaning of the Declaration's soaring invocation of natural rights.
- [01:54]
Craig Bruce Smith
It's a radical position in the late 18th century. What Jefferson was saying was conventional wisdom. He didn't invent this notion, and he certainly was not. He was not being original in anything he said in the Declaration. But all men being created equal was taken from Locke and Locke's epistemology. That is to say, we are all born with a blank slate. And the obvious differences that emerge, they weren't naive to think everyone's the same as adults, but the differences were due to the forces of the environment. And if you can change the environment, then people can bring their talents to fruition. And that was a defiance of the notion of blood being the most important thing, which is what the aristocrats, for hundreds of years, if not thousands of Years had believed they had bred horses, they had bred dogs, and they thought that people could be bred too, in a way. And so they put in a lot of the old aristocrats in the Ancien regiment, put a tremendous amount of emphasis on blood. Who were your parents, who were your ancestors? What Jefferson and the other enlightened people were saying in the 18th century when they said all men are created equal, they are defying that old Ancien regime convention.
- [03:27]
Martin
Even folks who don't pay close attention to history may know Wood's name because of this famous scene in Good Will
- [03:32]
Daniel Gulotta
Hunting that's gonna last until next year. You're gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talking about, you know, the pre revolutionary utopia and the capital farming effects of military mobilization.
- [03:43]
Martin
Wood would remind people he never really made that argument. Here to talk about the man's scholarship and enduring influence are three fine historians. Daniel Gulotta teaches American religious history with a focus on Christianity in early America at Ohio State University. Michael Haddam is a historian of the American Revolution specializing in historical memory, political culture and intellectual history at the Yale New Haven Teachers Institute. And Craig Bruce Smith is a professor of history at the National Defense University in Norfolk, Virginia. All views he expresses here are his own. Craig Bruce Smith, welcome to the show.
- [04:19]
Unknown Historian/Guest
Happy to be on the show. Sad about the circumstances.
- [04:23]
Martin
Daniel Gulotta, welcome.
- [04:25]
Daniel Gulotta
Thank you for having me.
- [04:25]
Martin
And Michael Haddam, welcome to you as well.
- [04:28]
Michael Haddam
Glad to be here.
- [04:29]
Martin
Craig, I'll just start with you. Overall thoughts on Gordon Wood's work and his place and really in American society,
- [04:36]
Unknown Historian/Guest
it's tough to actually put it into words. I mean, you could easily argue he is the, the most important historian of the past half century or more. If it's not him, I don't know who it is. Certainly in early America, I think, without question, he is the most influential historian since the late 1960s, early 1970s. Also, unlike most academics, his work has been able to transcend and go beyond just academia and reach the average reader. And, you know, obviously a name drop in a major Hollywood film will do that. But he has been able to branch out beyond the traditional academic who often just writes for other academics.
- [05:23]
Martin
Michael Haddam, overall thoughts?
- [05:26]
Michael Haddam
Yeah, I think I'd agree with Craig. I mean, he's certainly the most important historian of the revolution of the second half of the 20th century. I think that's pretty indisputable. The only rival he could, he possibly could have would be Bernard Bailin, who was his advisor in grad school. And Gordon did much more work on the revolution than Balin did. Balin was sort of could be all over the place. He's a seminal figure in the history of the revolution and in early American history generally, but also later in his career, became something of a contentious figure.
- [06:04]
Martin
Yeah, a strange lightning rod given his Persona. But then again, he wasn't afraid to get into the ring. I mean, I think that's the job of a historian to contest important ideas. Daniel Golotta, let me add a layer to this question for you. What do you think Gordon would in addition to your overall thoughts, what was his lasting achievement?
- [06:23]
Daniel Gulotta
I think if you were to ask most grad students, would you like a career similar to Gordon woods, everybody would jump at the opportunity. Very rarely these days you have someone who went to one of the best universities in the country, studied under one of the best historians of the time, to then get a job at one of the best universities in America, followed by winning one of the most important prizes in American history, and then not only influencing historians, but also having the ability, as Craig mentioned, to write to normies to ordinary people. The fact that people who are average Joes and Janes could pick up his books and enjoy reading about the friendship and the ups and lows of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, but then PhD students could fight over his books as well just kind of shows you how remarkable of career and how rare of a career that is today. In terms of your the first half of your question, I think the most lasting thing of his legacy is beyond the books themselves, obviously. I think the thing that we're probably still going to be talking about, especially with the 250th is the meaning of the revolution is what does the revolution mean then, now and going forward? And whether or not you agree with Wood, Wood will always probably be a voice in that ongoing discussion. What is the meaning of the American Revolution to American to add on to
- [07:58]
Unknown Historian/Guest
what Daniel said, I think again, someone could fact check me, but I think it came out in the Washington Post. He's also one, if not the most quoted historian by the Supreme Court or most cited, I should say. I mean, if for nothing else, that is a tremendous achievement, influence, whatever you want to call it.
- [08:16]
Martin
Although he wasn't always that thrilled about how he was quoted Craig Smith, what did he say about the revolution that was so important? And let's tie it to his first big book, the Creation of the American Republic.
- [08:28]
Unknown Historian/Guest
All right. The Creation of the American Republic is his first big book. It's the one that in academia it's still okay to like, but I still think he refines it when it gets to radicalism. So I'm not dodging your question, but fundamentally, his work is building around the idea. And I think it's a seeming, seemingly simple claim that the American Revolution is revolutionary. Well, first of all, that there was a revolution and that things in society, government, changed, that before this event, things were different. After it, there was something new. And I think that in of itself is a major claim. When you before that, you've had people arguing about all sorts of motivations, economic. Well, was the revolution even a thing? But the fact that the conversation is now about to what level, Right. How impactful was the revolution? And he makes the case that, yes, it absolutely changes things. And I think that's in some way, shape or form, been a lot of the discussion since the 1970s. I'm willing to hear others. But again, fundamentally, you have to address
- [09:36]
Martin
that question, changes things. Go deeper on that.
- [09:40]
Daniel Gulotta
Daniel if you look at the preface of Radicalism, he makes what most grad students, and perhaps even ordinary people would take as a provocative claim, that the American Revolution is more radical than the French Revolution by the metrics he is measuring it against, about how much society changed from root to branch. So one of my favorite examples that I use with undergrads is if the President of the United States walked in the room right now, how would you address him? And they think about it for a bit and eventually they'll say, Mr. President, you know, what do you call a business person? Or, you know, what do you call somebody you haven't met in a formal situation, you know, Mr. Mr. Golotta. So what's the difference between Mr. President and Mr. Galata? The ranking is basically similar. You know, that's one of my favorite ones because it always gets undergrads. Like, huh, that is kind of weird that we, you know, we do this and then you can look at paintings of George Washington and how does he compare in how he dresses to, like, the other gentry and regency, the royalty of Europe? It's so obvious. Like, once you look at it, this democratization, probably the easiest way I can explain it, as a Jacksonian scholar, is Wood basically says toquetal's rights in a way that the revolution lets loose all of these impulses that radically democratize level, republicanize society in the sense that Americans view themselves as equal with one another. In some sense. In some sense, that's like probably the most profound thing. And the revolution caused that. That's the big claim. The Revolution is the logic that sets that in Motion.
- [11:28]
Michael Haddam
Michael Wood is in grad school by the late 50s. This is the sort of first height of the Cold War. Some of the most prominent histories written about the revolution in the 1950s depicted it as a fundamentally conservative event. If we think about Daniel Boorstin's the Genius of American Politics, I mean, this is the most obvious example. To him, it's barely a revolution at all.
- [11:54]
Daniel Gulotta
Right?
- [11:54]
Michael Haddam
It's a conservative event because the colonists were fighting to preserve British liberties that they already had. They weren't, you know, trying like the French to overturn the social structure or anything like that. And this conservative revolution was important in this early Cold War context in terms of distinguishing it from the Russian Revolution and from distinguishing the United States from the Soviet Union. And Wood comes out of that context. But. But he actually makes this argument. His argument is radical in this context, to argue that the revolution was fundamentally radical because it changed how Americans across class divides, related to one another. That, to me, is a very radical argument to make. And you mentioned Creation. Creation is his first book. It's probably the defining book of his legacy, certainly amongst academic historians. But in that book, he sort of starts telling this story that, like Craig said, it gets extended by radicalism of the Revolution, which is, you know, there is this radical change in politics in the. In the conception and practice of politics and around the structures of government and of republican government, you know, especially in the 1780s and into the 1790s. And so if you take his long argument over the course of his career, there is this radical political change that occurs in the 1780s because of these unprecedented circumstances in the sort of new republic. And then those political changes help foster the kind of social and cultural and even economic changes that we see in radicalism later on.
- [13:33]
Unknown Historian/Guest
I think Michael's spot on here, but it's also. It's coming out of this tradition of not just the idea of conservatism, it's also building off the earlier tradition of economic interpretation. So he's very much pushing against that as well, that this isn't about necessarily something tangible. It's about ideas, ideals, however you want to define them. So there are other factors there as well. And you're absolutely right about the Cold War, and the Cold War does shape his scholarship again, when he gets to his. One of his later works, Idea of America, the final chapter is very much set up as the American Revolution versus the Russian Revolution for influence throughout the world. And his idea of a radical revolution actually shows that the American Revolution is more appealing to more people throughout the world at Least that's his claim.
- [14:25]
Michael Haddam
What they agreed on in the 1950s was that the Revolution was conservative and that the fundamental influence on the Revolution was Locke. Right. Wood comes along, building off of his advisor Bernard Balin's work, and says, no, it's these Republican ideas from 17th century England that are really, that have much more influence on political thought during the Revolution than any of Locke's ideas did. There are moments, and not just a few moments where Gordon Wood's work can seem quite Beardian. I mean, I'm referring to Charles Beard, the very controversial historian from the 1910s who made this argument that the Founders basically voted in the Constitutional Convention along with along the lines of their financial interests, their self interest, and would obviously never agree with that. But Wood was a lot more class conscious than I think a lot of historians gave him credit for, certainly than historians today give him credit for, and probably more class conscious than most historians today, for that matter.
- [15:32]
Unknown Historian/Guest
Yeah, I think he's talking about more hierarchy and status than necessarily class in a economic sense, though I think that could be a pushback on that.
- [15:41]
Michael Haddam
Well, I think that he understood essentially that the, I don't know, like quote unquote, Founders, he understood that there was a class conflict dynamic to the Constitution. That that leads to a sort of interesting irony in his work. You know, Wood, Wood says that the Founders distrusted democracy, they distrusted the people. Right. That's no small part why the Constitution comes about, because of the changes in the politics in 1780s. You know, that's also the controversial Charles Beard argument, a sense, you know, that the Constitution was a counter revolution. Wood doesn't go that far, but he's sort of characterized as a sort of founder's historian, and he did write some stuff like that later, but generally throughout his career he's been pretty clear that to him the great achievement of the Revolution long term and just the American constitutional achievement is not the work of a few Founders, but it's the, it's the success of the political system that brought about by the experience and common sense, he would say, of ordinary people and how they work these things out, these constitutional conflicts, work them out over time, that that's the real achievement. It's not just a few founders. Yeah.
- [16:56]
Martin
There's more to society than political activity. Right. The Revolution manifests itself in familial relations, in economics, in capitalism, what have you. Daniel, I want to hear what you have to say about all this, but the way I, as a non historian, the only non historian among the four of us here, sum up Gordon Wood's work, he made me understand what the difference is between being a subject of the crown and being a citizen of a republic.
- [17:23]
Daniel Gulotta
DANIEL yeah, no, I think that's dead on. I completely agree with Michael about the class consciousness element, which again, seems counterintuitive to many young historians these days. Probably be offended that the idea that Gordon Wood has better class consciousness them. But in a sense, to build off what Craig and Michael said, so much of it is changing the conversation where ideas do matter. The question now is what are those ideas? Where Wood does see them more in that republicanism that eventually evolves into democratic for better, for worse. One of the things that people often forget about is that the ending of radicalism, of the American Revolution that ends with the rise of Andrew Jackson is far more ambiguous. Is far more ambiguous. You know, part of the problem is how do you contain this radicalism? What are the limiting principles? What are the fences and the guard rails around it? And Wood basically says the answers aren't clear. And if you jump to 2026, the answers aren't quite clear about that as well. But to add on to that, it also just goes to show, and this kind of speaks to criticism of Wood, where rather than class, race has sort of become the dominant discussion within scholarship as well. Yes, there are ideas of the American Revolution, but are they racial? Are they. Are they far darker and more deadly sinister ideas? So, but even just bringing the conversation about ideology, about culture, it just kind of shows you how much Wood, even if people don't agree with him, he's flipped the script in a way that you're still engaging with him.
- [19:05]
Martin
Let's return to the criticisms of Wood and how he did or did not deal with slavery adequately in his work. And for those who may be losing track of all these books, the Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, that is his first book. It is still in print. It came out in the late 60s. The other major work, the Radicalism of the American Revolution, won the Pulitzer Prize. I'm holding it in my hands right now, came out in the 1990s. Two to your point about the Democratic revolution that Sean Wilentz has written beautifully about in his work that was happening at the local and at the state level, we often talk about what I think is a stale debate about the revolution put in motion forces that then the Constitutional Convention was designed to bring to heel. Right. A conservative Constitution. I'm not saying it's not important. In my mind, it's getting a little stale. But again, I'M not a historian anyway, to the end of the radicalism of the American Revolution. One of you brought this up. Jefferson lived too long, and the future and the coming generation were not what he expected. Jefferson was frightened by the popularity of Andrew Jackson, regarding him as a man of violent passions and unfit for the presidency. He felt overwhelmed by the new paper money business culture sweeping through the country, and never appreciated how much his democratic and egalitarian principles had contributed to its rise. Wood says the numbers of old revolutionaries who lost faith in what the revolution had done is startling.
- [20:33]
Unknown Historian/Guest
I think his point still remains. It shows how radical this event was. Now the Constitution, again, conservative, that's a whole different thing. But the idea is, I think the best way to look at it is a radical revolution that was restrained. And we could talk about what the restraint is. Is it morality, is it virtue, is it politics? What is it? But there's some form of restraint now. The Founders in their later years, bemoaning next generations again, the founders did some pretty incredible things, but at the end of the day, they're still people. And what do people in their, their elder years often do? They blame those damn kids. So I think it very much is what you have going on is just some, some generational strife here that the revolution has unlocked some new things. It has created chances for others that may not have had them. There is some concern on the part of these, you know, these aging Founders. Will they undo my work? Are they misunderstanding, misinterpreting my words, our intentions? I don't think that's anything particularly necessarily,
- [21:39]
Martin
but it is something. Yeah, it's something coming from Jefferson because he was probably the most democratical, least deferential culture of deference that Gordon Wood talks about. Jefferson may also have been jealous of people who are making money, since he only could put two nickels together long enough to spend them. Go ahead, Michael.
- [21:56]
Michael Haddam
I think for Wood, it's a little bit more than a generational gap. I think the radicalism of the American Revolution is broken down into three sections. Monarchy, republicanism, and democracy. And the argument is clear from the structure. America's move from one to the next. And republicanism, that's what the Founders intended. That's what they envisioned. They envisioned a republic without political parties. And within two years of the new Constitution, they have political parties. So to his credit would always stress the unintended consequences of the revolution. For many of these Founders, democracy was not a desirable goal. It was equated with anarchy. For many of these Founders, especially, you know, in, in the context of their, you know, Republican thinking. So this is something they found immediately upsetting in this and many of them in the 1780s. And. And that is partly why we get the Constitution. And then as. As the sort of democratic impulse that the revolution unleashes, as that in their minds begins to so spiral out of control by the 1820s. I think those concerns that many of the founders had towards the end of their lives are rooted in exactly how they thought about what the revolution was, what it meant and what it was supposed to be.
- [23:14]
Unknown Historian/Guest
There are legitimate concerns, but I think there's a couple of things going on there. So there's concerns about things like Civil War as early as the end of the Revolution, there's fears of the French Revolution. And so there's legitimate things you could point to. But at the same time, I do think that for some of the older founders, they are no longer in positions of power.
- [23:36]
Daniel Gulotta
I think it's interesting when you look at Wood's reception, infamously or famously, Newt Gingrich recommends this book, loves it. It's very interesting that after Wood died, the amount of Republican candidates and governors and statesmen were recommending on Twitter X to read Wood's writing, which is very interesting, which makes assume that the story Wood is telling is a kind of rah, rah America story. But what's interesting is if you look at people on the new rights, they actually could read Wood and see, see, this is why the Declaration of Independence. This is why America's gone off the rails. So it's funny how Wood appealed to both readers where I was very honest about this myself. Like, reading Radicalism made me want to be an American more than anything else like that. The book. I wanted to join this tradition so badly after reading something like radicalism, and I think it's definitely shaped how I think about the founding and my own place in American society. So it's a very personal book to me. But you can see people on the new rights who also read Wood. They can get to the Jefferson Place at the end where it's like, oh, like, look. Look at these kids today and everything they claim in the language of rights. And I have a right to this. I have a right to that. I have a right to this. And it's all, as Wood would point out, did point out, so much of it comes from the revolution that the revolution gives this lexicon to people about rights making language about radical change, things like that. Where does it start and where does it end?
- [25:17]
Michael Haddam
I think Wood, especially in these later years, Wood always was Sort of bemused by Newt Gingrich sort of publicly circulating and praising his book. I saw one interview where he said that was basically like the kiss of death amongst his fellow academics. You know, the early 90s, when radicalism came out, is sort of the beginning of the second half of his career where in some sense, you know, he turns into, or he is made into a sort of symbol, a symbol of many things. He also certainly, you know, in, in the last decade or more, you know, he comes to be a symbol of this sort of old academic establishment. That's a big part of the conflicted way that many historians today view Wood. But part of that is because they're, they're projecting. Wood is such an enormous figure in the field, just like we project ourselves and our beliefs onto the revolution, our assumptions. I've also done that with Wood himself because he's become such an enormous figure.
- [26:22]
Martin
Nicole Hannah Jones referred to him and other critics of her terrible 1619 project as white historians. We're going to tackle that issue next. Criticism of Wood's work, not just from scholars who raise legitimate criticisms, but in the pop culture. We'll go back to the summer, the woke summer of 2020. We're talking about how different people across the political spectrum appropriate Wood's work or the inspiration or the ideas they find appealing in it. One of my recent laments is people on the left giving up on the whole story of the American Revolution. I think the first time I, I heard Gordon woods name I was a young man. It was in a movie in the 1990s named Good Will Hunting. This clip on YouTube has been viewed 31 million times. To set the stage, some pompous college know it all is about to lecture Ben Affleck's character in a bar about what he knows about history. And Matt Damon, who plays Will, overhears the remarks and interjects.
- [27:26]
Michael Haddam
I was just hoping you might give me some insight into the evolution of the market economy in the southern colonies. My contention is that prior to the Revolutionary War, the economic modalities, especially in the southern colonies, could most aptly be characterized as agrarian pre.
- [27:46]
Martin
Capital.
- [27:46]
Daniel Gulotta
Of course, that's your attention. You're a first year grad student. You just got finished reading some Marxian historian Pete Garrison. Probably you're gonna be convinced of that till next month when you get to James Lemon. Then you're gonna be talking about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. That's gonna last until next year. You're gonna be in here, regurgitating Gordon Wood, talking about, you know, the pre revolutionary utopia and the capital forming effects of military mobilization.
- [28:12]
Martin
Hey Craig, you wanna tell us what all that was about?
- [28:15]
Unknown Historian/Guest
Basically, it is an accurate depiction of an Ivy League grad student showing off what they've read and challenging others who haven't read it.
- [28:27]
Daniel Gulotta
Especially at Harvard, especially.
- [28:29]
Unknown Historian/Guest
That's spot on. Also, you know, if you want to go deeper into academia, the idea that to succeed in academia usually is just to regurgitate whatever the professor believes. So that is very much lingering there about the idea of, you know, free thought there. But the idea is Gordon Wood is thrown out. All that matters is the name is said and he's thrown out as like this sort of trump card. He's got the really good line. Regurgitate Gordon Wood. This, this clip, like you said, it's been viewed 31 million times or whatever. It's parodied in Always Sunny in Philadelphia. This probably makes him. Has the widest reach of any historian I know of. Just this one name drop where people will know him. Gordon Wood was on my dissertation committee. When I explained to my family why this was a big deal, I referenced that scene and they all knew who he was. Didn't know a thing he wrote, but they all knew who he was. And I think that just shows the impact of this scene, even though it
- [29:26]
Daniel Gulotta
doesn't accurately depict his scholarship at all, which is something he constantly had to. He had to. I agree, it doesn't matter. But every interview he has asked about it, you can hear the cringe in his voice.
- [29:38]
Martin
Exactly.
- [29:39]
Daniel Gulotta
About like if you're going to be
- [29:40]
Martin
named in a major movie, get the work right. Go ahead, Daniel.
- [29:43]
Unknown Historian/Guest
But it shows you it doesn't matter.
- [29:45]
Michael Haddam
That really set what up for the sort of latter part of his career because he spent, I mean, up until, I don't know, maybe the last five years or so, maybe a little bit more pre pandemic. He was constantly traveling and speaking at historical societies large and small all over the place. You can see many talks of his on YouTube. The talks didn't change very much, but that moment from Good Will Hunting sort of gave him a name recognition that I don't think any other American historian has had. I don't know, maybe outside Howard Zinn in terms of the popular culture. It was enough to boost him to this level where he could go around and give talks to large, large audiences of non historians. You know, whether he had a new book out or not. You know, that's unusual.
- [30:36]
Martin
So I speak to historians all the time on my podcast, and they will tell me about the books they're writing. I read their books. But we know most people don't read big history books. And sometimes historians lament to me that they put in all this work, blood, sweat, tears and years, and, you know, they write a book and no one reads it. So it is unusual for a historian to take on a celebrity or a quasi celebrity status. However, even if a lot of people don't read a history book, really good historians are influential because their work stays in the historiography. It influences the historiography, right? And eventually it filters down into the public at some level in textbooks or what have you. And often historians will then interject in public discourse, coming at it from a popular rather than an academic position. Somewhere in the middle is journalism and the New York Times and the 1619 Project. I thought Gordon Wood and others like Sean Wilentz and Jack Gracov and a number of others were courageous to speak out about that project's distortions. None worse than the claim that first it was all or was a primary cause and then they changed it to some colonists fought the American Revolution to preserve slavery. That also is not correct. When those historians spoke out about that distortion and some other problems with the 1619 Project, they were treated pretty nastily, including by Nicole Haddon Jones, another historian who often acted like a demagogue in public, Woody Holton. He was pretty rude to Gordon Wood in a debate you can find online. We'll go with Daniel here first, but I want to hear from all of you your thoughts on Gordon wood in the 1619 Project.
- [32:16]
Daniel Gulotta
I think one of the things you can definitely say, similar to what Michael was alluding to earlier, is that this is second half of Wood's career. So he's kind of an elder statesman historian at this point. But it also speaks to the. The technological changes, you know, Wood and Lawrence and many of these other historians who are critical the 60s, they're not on social media. They don't have podcasts or subsects. I think part of the thing that catches Wood off guard is just how the virality of this project and also just how just how many people are talking about it online as well. And also just tone of the debate. I think a lot of that catches him off guard and reveals that not only has the conversation changed, but the demeanor of talking about history has changed as well. In the era of tweets and podcasts and sound bites, things like that. Beyond that, though, historians have been researching slavery and the American Revolution. For a long time. Obviously, I think it's, you know, Michael would know more about this than I do, given his expertise. You know, obviously it's not a focal point of study for a long time. But then eventually with the cultural turn, it becomes more and more important in scholarship to talk about. And anybody who's read Wood knows that he engages with this and the things he points out with the 1619 project, primarily, like the main thing, the claim that the revolution is, if not primarily about the defense of slavery. The defense of slavery plays a significant defining role in the origins and fighting of the revolution.
- [34:00]
Martin
Nonsense.
- [34:01]
Daniel Gulotta
Wood takes big umbrage with this.
- [34:04]
Martin
As he should have. As he should have. Nonsense.
- [34:07]
Daniel Gulotta
No, I, I agree. But then I think again, to speak to kind of the strangeness of Wood's reception beyond the New York Times and other outlets, the world Socialists host Wood. I think they interviewed him for about an hour and a half. Wood writes a few pieces for them. So again, like from being endorsed by Newt Gingrich to talking to the world Socialists, it just again, speaks to just how widespread the guy's influence was. But what's really interesting as well, when you look at when the kind of fervor around the 1619 project died down, he said that he was kind of glad to talk about it in an interesting way. He made these offhand comments about, I'm glad we're talking about slavery. You know, I think the claims made were wrong and they needed correcting. But this idea that he was this, like, we shouldn't talk about slavery. He openly said years later that like, actually he was glad that all this new research was coming out, that some of it he was aware of, some of it he wasn't aware of. Again, I think it speaks well of his character in the ultimate resolution, in my opinion.
- [35:12]
Unknown Historian/Guest
I think his critiques of the 1619 project were exactly right. And he was one of the few. Him and, you know, the rest of the Fab Five and maybe a handful of others that were actually willing to go on the record and say so. I will say there were plenty of other historians that were critical of the 1619 project that did not want to publicly say anything because like Daniel points out, you know, social media was evolving. You would get mobbed by the so called Twitter stories historian here and you would get lectured and it could potentially impact your career.
- [35:50]
Daniel Gulotta
This was before the Blue sky exodus.
- [35:52]
Martin
Let me just interject here quickly, Craig. I interviewed Jim Oakes about 1619 after Jim had written a great 26 page essay in the journal Catalyst about how badly. The 1619 project got wrong the very issue it was supposed to be studying slavery. I remember posting that on Twitter and people came after me and I'm, you know, I'm a nobody. Go ahead.
- [36:15]
Unknown Historian/Guest
The central criticism and Wood and the others at the time even said they didn't object to the study of slavery or this place of slavery in American history. It was primarily on that claim that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery. The New York Times fought back. The American Historical association pushed back really hard on that. A number of historians basically all supported the 1619 project. I believe Nikole Hannah Jones then made a point of saying that Gordon Wood is not preeminent or the others weren't preeminent. If he's not, I don't know who is.
- [36:49]
Martin
Oh, she doesn't know what she's talking about, but go ahead.
- [36:51]
Unknown Historian/Guest
Ultimately they changed it to some, right? Some. And the question is then who are some of these individuals? The biggest issue is going to the 1619 Project. Who are the early American historians that worked on it? The only one I'm aware of actually came out in, I think it was Politico and said that they ignored all of her suggestions.
- [37:14]
Martin
But yeah, I had on my show actually about four years ago. Her name escapes me, but go ahead.
- [37:19]
Michael Haddam
Leslie Harris.
- [37:20]
Martin
Leslie Harris, yes.
- [37:21]
Unknown Historian/Guest
So they dug in. Historians like Holton were used as well because after the fact his scholarship was applied. I do not believe they talked to him before anything was released, but after the fact he became attached to it. I think he was in the. The TV series or the documentary or whatever it was.
- [37:39]
Martin
Yeah, he made a number of false claims in that Hulu docu series dealing with the Dunmore proclamation and other things. But go ahead.
- [37:46]
Unknown Historian/Guest
Well, the issue basically became is the argument that this was a revolution to preserve slavery, but they didn't present really any evidence and Dunmore became this sort of proto abolitionist figure rather than looking at his proclamation as like a wartime document. I think this is a lot what, you know, what Daniel said, what Michael spoken about, you know, this is Gordon Wood for a Wood for all Seasons where everyone created some image of what he was. In opposing the 1619 project, he became really easy for conservatives to hold him up. At the same time for more left leaning academics, it became easy to hold him up as example of all that was wrong with the world. And then as some like to say, he was a founder sher, which is just a ridiculous term, but that's a whole other episode.
- [38:33]
Michael Haddam
Wood's reputation in the field in the years leading up to the 1619 Project kerfuffle. You know, Wood was quite outspoken in his critiques of the presentism, expanding geography of the field and it's incorporating the Caribbean and even beyond. He was worried about how recent scholarship de. Centered the nation state. Right. And he worried that meant that historians were not offering a story of the nation, coherent story of the nation, partly because that's what he had done during the 1960s in the cold War context. He offered a story of the nation, I think in his mind, probably, and others, that was no small contributing factor to winning the Cold War. So he had real concerns about the direction of the field and he was being quite vocal about it especially and publishing especially in conservative outlets like the, like Weekly Standard. And so that really rankled, you know, your typical liberal slash left academic historians. So he was already becoming even more contentious than he had been. And this, the 1619 project thing, I hate to even lump him in with other critics like Wilentz and Oakes, especially because Oakes, Oakes had many, many criticisms of the 1619 project. Wood had one, and it was that line. It was that one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare independence was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. And he came out and he said, that is not accurate. I think it was infuriating to some because there had been some scholarship leading up to that moment that was trying to make that argument. If we think about Gerald Horne's book.
- [40:24]
Martin
Yeah, I read that one. I didn't like it at all, but go ahead.
- [40:27]
Craig Bruce Smith
Yeah.
- [40:27]
Michael Haddam
Or the way that people that historians were starting to talk about the Somerset case and Dunmore's proclamation, and that goes back to Woody's work. Historians have been sort of making their way to this argument that slavery was an important part of declaring independence, but factually they're just not there yet. And Wood pointing that out, I think it sort of made people more aware of or just reminded people that part of the scholarship is not quite there. Usually it takes decades for a scholarly argument to make it into the popular culture. This was an example where the argument was in the popular culture way ahead of where it was in the scholarship. And that's a really unique kind of example in early American history and the relationship between historiography and popular culture.
- [41:10]
Martin
I'll say one salutary effect of all of that controversy was gave me an opportunity to really sharpen up my knowledge of the Somerset case of the Dunmar Proclamation and the real importance of slavery in the American Revolution. It was important on all sides. The problem was the Distortion, as we've been discussing, to say it was a cause of independence. Right. The actual pro slavery revolution happens in 1860. If you put it back in the 18th century, you can't explain the causes of the American Civil war, which the 1619 project was also terrible on. Daniel, go ahead. Daniel Gulotta the thing I wanted to
- [41:46]
Daniel Gulotta
add on to, which takes us back to the top of us talking, I think it goes back to like the meaning making of the revolution, where the vision of America and the founding that the 1619 project is, you know, we are born in this original sin. Our founding conflict is one born out of a white supremacist impulse in terms of like, meaning making and identity formation and the value of the nation and citizenship. The 1619 Project really brings all of that into question, this very deconstructionist impulse. Beyond the historical claims, there are the meta claims behind it as well about the meaning of the revolution. And if you look in terms of its popularity, whether, you know, whether people buy it or not, and they shouldn't, you look at the America 250 and the amount of opinion columns and survey data we have about whether or not we should celebrate the revolution. The fact that we're so divided and unsure about the revolution in 2026 I think really does go to show A, I think you should read some more Gordon Wood. But B it it does go to show these are not just historical claims. Debates over the revolution are not just debates over historical facts. They are debates about who we are, what we mean, and what is our place in history. And Wood's role in that, I think is important.
- [43:20]
Unknown Historian/Guest
DANIEL that's a fantastic point. I think it does matter. We could argue about if Wood is right, wrong, what have you, but as Americans, shouldn't we want him to be right? Isn't this vision of the American Revolution the one we should embrace, one that has removed aristocracy, hierarchy, opened up to merit, opened up to, to virtue and republicanism? Isn't this the revolution we should embrace? I think that's one of the things that makes him really rare among academics. He notes the faults of the revolution, he notes the faults of the founding, but he still finds something positive there. He still finds something amazing there. And I think that is really the legacy of Wood. And you know, Michael talked about earlier about he absolutely advances the idea of a nation state and, you know, perhaps he wants to protect his own work.
- [44:08]
Daniel Gulotta
Perhaps.
- [44:09]
Unknown Historian/Guest
But if you look at other historians like Jill Lepore, who again, another, you know, historian who has translated very much into the public circle, not in the same way as Wood, she's also advancing this idea, this role of the nation state about the need for an American story. She's gotten similar sort of pushback from the critics, particularly academic critics, saying, oh no, this is old, old fashioned. This is outdated. We have to do, you know, the new trendy niche stuff.
- [44:37]
Martin
Well, I'll just say Jill Lepore also screws up Dunmore in her big book, which otherwise is pretty good. Was it these truths? Survey of American History?
- [44:46]
Unknown Historian/Guest
I was just say Daniel. Daniel and I did a part review a long time ago where we took some issues with Jill Lepore's book. So as I recall, we didn't take issue with the central idea idea, but we, we had a lot of problems with certain sections.
- [45:01]
Daniel Gulotta
She gets a lot of Jackson wrong, in my opinion.
- [45:04]
Martin
Michael, go ahead.
- [45:05]
Michael Haddam
So I think the central point of Wood's work over his entire career is that the American Revolution was important and that it was central to American history, central to American identity. The American Revolution is our origin story. It's our national origin story. And the 1619 Project proposed a new origin story. The fact that its subtitle of the book was A New Origin Story shows that, you know, underlying all of it is a recognition of the importance of the Revolution. And you can't tell this integrated narrative about the role of slavery in American history if it's not there and central at the founding moment. And so that seems the impulse to me that underlies, you know, the making of that sort of exaggerated argument. But in the last six to eight months, I've been doing a lot of traveling and a lot of talks and talking about the memory of the American Revolution. And even though we as a nation seem to be highly polarized, I find most Americans that I talk to and I've traveled all over the country have a sense that there are things worth celebrating about the American Revolution. And there were also shortcomings. It's a very moderate common sense, not extreme way that most Americans view the American Revolution. And I would put Gordon Wood in that category. He may have underplayed slavery or whatever for, you know, in, in some historians minds, but he never denied that it was an important part of American history and that. And that it was a failure of the Revolution. And he argued that the Revolution helped, you know, address it later on. But I think that Gordon Wood, in the way that he talked about the Revolution was much closer to your. The way typical Americans today view the Revolution. Maybe more so than most academic historians,
- [46:53]
Unknown Historian/Guest
most people view the importance of the Revolution, the importance of the founders. Again, how far does it go? Where are the flaws? I think that's what's open to debate, but I think the importance. Average Americans accept that. And I think they would be in line with sort of Wood's line of thought.
- [47:11]
Martin
We wouldn't be the nation we are. Although it has been pointed out that if the revolutionaries had lost or if they had never revolved, revolted, the colonies, like Canada today, would have gotten their independence at some point. I'll just wrap up with the final paragraph or so of the final page of Gordon Wood's Empire of Liberty. I think this will answer his critics. And I say this even though Gordon Wood would not be my first choice when reading books about slavery as I have now. If you're gonna ask me, all right, Martin, who are your favorite authors on that topic, I'd have to stop, look over my shoulder and study my bookshelf, because it's been a bit.
- [47:47]
Craig Bruce Smith
But.
- [47:47]
Martin
But Ira Berlin comes to mind. Edmund Morgan, David Bryan Davis, and many others. All right, anyway, back to Wood says here on the final page. Although Jefferson in his final years tried to retain his sunny hopes for the future, he had twinges of an impending disaster whose sources he never fully understood. He and his colleagues had created a union devoted to liberty that contained an inner flaw that would nearly prove to be its undoing. The Virginians, who had done so much to bring about the United States, knew in their souls, as Madison intimated in his advice to the country from beyond the grave, that there was a serpent creeping with his deadly wiles in their Arcadian paradise. Like Madison, many of the older generation came to realize that slavery and farming are incompatible. The Civil War was the climax of a tragedy that was preordained from the time of the Revolution, wrote Gordon Wood. Only with the elimination of slavery could this nation that Jefferson had called the world's best hope for democracy even begin to fulfill its great promise.
- [48:48]
Unknown Historian/Guest
I think Gordon Wood has the rare honor of been able to influence America and historical study in a way that we can only dream of doing in the future. His emphasis on trying to understand the past on its own terms and as he termed, you know, the having humility about the past. I think that's what we have to take going forward in the study of history. Whether you agree with him, disagree with him and his conclusions, I think we can all use that going forward.
- [49:20]
Martin
And here is Gordon Wood just last year at a talk at Brown University about his first book, the Creation of the American Republic.
- [49:28]
Craig Bruce Smith
It's interesting. I mean, the first part of the book deals with Republicanism, the Revolution, the ideological debate that led to the Declaration of Independence. The center of the book deals with Constitution making. I can only say that my mentor Bud Bailyn didn't like the last part because it suggested that there was a social conflict in the revolution and he just wouldn't admit that. So when he assigned the book after it was published, he only signed the Middle Church chapters because he didn't want any suggestion that there was the worthy versus the licentious.
- [50:09]
Martin
And we thank Craig Bruce Smith, Daniel Gulotta, and Michael Haddam for talking about the amazing legacy of Gordon Wood. And thank you for listening to this special bonus episode of History as it Happens. Please consider becoming a subscriber if you haven't already. You'll have access to all of our bonus content. Content, not just a preview plus ad. Free listening and early access. Just go to historyasithappens.com to sign up. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads ads, go to libsynads. Com. That's L, I B S Y N Ads. Com. Today.