Wood, Gordon S. 1933- (Gordon Stewart Wood)

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Wood, Gordon S. 1933- (Gordon Stewart Wood)

PERSONAL:

Born November 27, 1933, in Concord, MA; son of Herbert G. and Marion Wood; married Louise Goss, April 30, 1956; children: Christopher, Elizabeth, Amy. Education: Tufts University, A.B. (summa cum laude), 1955; Harvard University, A.M., 1959, Ph.D., 1964.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Providence, RI. Office—Department of History, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, assistant professor, 1964-66; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, assistant professor of history, 1966-67; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, associate professor of history, 1967-69; Brown University, Providence, RI, associate professor, 1969-71, professor of history, 1971—, department chair, 1983-86, University Professor, 1990—, Alvo O. Way University Professor, 1997. Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, Pitt Professor, 1982-83; Northwestern University School of Law, Pritzker Visiting Professor, 2001; lecturer and consultant; Journal of American History, member of board of editors; Colonial Williamsburg, member of the board of trustees; member of various other boards of trustees, advisory boards, and committees. Military service: U.S. Air Force, 1955-58; became first lieutenant.

MEMBER:

American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, Society of American Historians, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, American Antiquarian Society, Massachusetts Historical Society, American Studies Association, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Prizes from Harvard University, 1963, 1964; Institute of Early Culture fellowship, 1964-66; National Endowment for the Humanities, fellow- ship, 1967, grant, 1972-73; John H. Dunning Prize, American Historical Association, and Bancroft Prize, Columbia University, 1970, for The Creation of the American Republic; National Endowment for the Humanities grant, 1972-73; Kerr Prize, New York Historical Society, 1981; Daughters of Colonial Wars Award, 1983; Douglass Adair Award, 1984; Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award, 1992; Ralph Waldo Emerson Award, from Phi Beta Kappa, and Pulitzer Prize, history, both 1993, both for The Radicalism of the American Revolution; Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame, 2000; honorary doctorate, LaTrobe University (Australia), 2001; Julia Ward Howe Prize, Boston Authors Club, 2005, for The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin; various other fellowships and grants.

WRITINGS:

The Creation of the American Republic, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1969.

(Editor) Representation in the American Revolution, University of Virginia Press (Charlottesville, VA), 1969.

(Editor) The Rising Glory of America, 1760-1820, George Braziller (New York, NY), 1971, revised edition, Northeastern University Press (Boston, MA), 1990.

(Editor) The Confederation and the Constitution, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1973.

Revolution and the Political Integration of the Enslaved and Disenfranchised, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (Washington, DC), 1974.

(Contributor) Leadership in the American Revolution, Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 1974.

(With J.R. Pole) Social Radicalism and the Idea of Equality in the American Revolution, University of St. Thomas (Houston, TX), 1976.

(With others) The Great Republic, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1977, 4th edition, Heath (Lexington, MA), 1992.

The Making of the Constitution, Baylor University Press (Waco, TX), 1987.

(Editor) Rising Glory of America, 1760-1820, Northeastern University Press (Boston, MA), 1990.

The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor, with Louise G. Wood) Russian-American Dialogue on the American Revolution, University of Missouri Press (Columbia, MO), 1995.

Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1998.

(Editor, with Anthony Molho) Imagined Histories: American Historians Interpret the Past, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1998.

Monarchism and Republicanism in the Early United States, La Trobe University (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2000.

The American Revolution: A History, Modern Library (New York, NY), 2001.

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, Penguin Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, Penguin Press (New York, NY), 2006.

The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History, Penguin Press (New York, NY), 2008.

Contributor to books, including Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture, edited by Peter Onuf and Jan Lewis, University of Virginia Press (Charlottesville, VA), 1999, and To the Best of My Ability: The American Presidency, edited by James M. McPherson, Society of American Historians (New York, NY), 2000. Contributor of articles to periodicals, including New England Quarterly, William and Mary Quarterly, American Historical Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Washington and Lee Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. Contributor of book reviews to periodicals, including New York Review of Books, New York Times, and New Republic.

SIDELIGHTS:

Gordon S. Wood is a professor of history who has spent most of his academic career teaching at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Wood is the author of many volumes of American history, including his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Radicalism of the American Revolution, the three sections of which are titled "Monarchy," "Republicanism," and "Democracy." In reviewing the volume in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Richard R. Johnson wrote: "There is much to admire—and to tempt teachers to appropriate—in the book. Written with verve and wit, the text is filled with exhilarating insights. Wood has a special talent for flecking his argument with human stories and pithy quotations that are drawn from a broad spectrum of printed primary and secondary sources. Never, for example, have the elements of Benjamin Franklin's refashioning of his own life been better used."

Franklin is the subject of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin. Historian reviewer David T. Morgan began his review by writing: "The author of this study will not be remembered for writing the most books in his field—only the best ones. His The Creation of the American Republic and The Radicalism of the American Revolution are classics that have been justifiably praised. His new book on Benjamin Franklin is no less worthy of recognition. It touches on virtually every aspect of Franklin's life and is arguably the best short biography of Franklin to date. It is characterized by Gordon S. Wood's usual felicitous writing style and profound insights."

Wood studies Franklin's rise from his humble beginnings to his achievements as a statesman, scientist, and philosopher, all of which benefited from his skills and charm. He is also shown to be a loyal British subject who had not dreamed of seeking independence from Britian until the age of seventy. Wood reveals not only Franklin the patriot, but Franklin the man, who believed in the fairness of his native Britain but who changed allegiances when the colonists were badly treated, and Franklin suffered for it. Although he is one of America's founding fathers, Franklin spent most of the last half of his life in Britain and France.

In Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, Wood profiles eight of America's founders: George Washington, Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Paine, and Aaron Burr. A chapter is devoted to each and, in addition to more commonly known facts, Wood provides information about his subjects' economic and social backgrounds and their philosophies and personalities, as revealed through correspondence. All were self-made successes, the first in their families to be educated and rise to importance, with the exception of Burr, who was both the son and the grandson of Princeton University presidents. Weekly Standard contributor Edwin M. Yoder, Jr., concluded his review by writing: "If we can't turn back the clock, we can at least enjoy a master historian's refreshing reassessment of seven men whose legacies live on. The book may be a quilt sewn of many patches, but it never reads that way. It has the integrity and, yes, the eccentricity of the Founders it celebrates."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Army Lawyer, August, 2007, Kyle D. Murray, review of Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, 72.

Booklist, January 1, 2002, Gilbert Taylor, review of The American Revolution: A History, p. 802; April 15, 2004, Jay Freeman, review of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, p. 142; February 15, 2006, Gilbert Taylor, review of Revolutionary Characters, p. 35.

English Historical Review, April, 1994, H.G. Pitt, review of The Radicalism of the American Revolution, p. 390.

Foreign Affairs, November-December, 2006, Walter Russell Mead, review of Revolutionary Characters.

Harvard Law Review, December, 2006, review of Revolutionary Characters, p. 619.

Historian, fall, 2005, David T. Morgan, review of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, p. 551.

History: Review of New Books, fall, 2005, Elizabeth E. Dunn, review of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, p. 13.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, winter, 1994, Richard R. Johnson, review of The Radicalism of the American Revolution, p. 556.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2004, review of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, p. 264; December 15, 2007, review of The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History.

Kliatt, November, 2004, Sunnie Grant, review of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, p. 54; November, 2005, Janet Julian, review of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, p. 28; September, 2006, John E. Boyd, review of Revolutionary Characters, p. 64.

Library Journal, March 1, 2006, Karen Sutherland, review of Revolutionary Characters, p. 105.

New Leader, May-June, 2004, Eugen Weber, review of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, p. 18.

New York Times Book Review, August 8, 2004, Barry Gewen, review of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly, December 13, 1991, review of The Radicalism of the American Revolution, p. 39; March 22, 2004, review of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, p. 71; January 16, 2006, review of Revolutionary Characters, p. 45.

School Library Journal, January, 2005, Kathy Tewell, review of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, p. 161; August, 2006, Kathy Tewell, review of Revolutionary Characters, p. 147.

Washington Post Book World, Robert Middlekauff, review of Revolutionary Characters, p. 5.

Weekly Standard, July 3, 2006, Edwin M. Yoder, Jr., review of Revolutionary Characters.