Jake Silverstein, the editor of The New York Times Magazine, has published a helpful 8100-world piece on the origins of the 1619 Project and how it has triggered the latest debate over the teaching of American history in schools. Here...
Gordon Wood
Gordon Wood and Woody Holton will debate the meaning of the American Revolution
Learn how to watch Saturday’s debate here. It is sponsored by the Massachusetts Historical Society. Here’s more: Gordon Wood and Woody Holton are both distinguished scholars of the American Revolution. But they approach the founding very differently, as you can...
Albert Mohler interviews Gordon Wood
The 87-year-old American historian has a new book out. It is titled Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution. Listen here. At about the 34:00 mark Mohler asks Wood about how he does history. Wood talks about the ahistorical...
Practice virtue. Get vaccinated
On Wednesday I wrote a piece at Current titled, “Love Your Neighbor. Get Vaccinated.” I discussed the resistance to vaccines in the evangelical community and focused a significant portion of the piece on talk radio show host and author Eric...
World Socialist Web Site publishes its critique of the 1619 Project
Learn more about David North and Thomas Mackaman’s edited collection, The New York Times’ 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History. The book includes essays or interviews with Victoria Bynum, James McPherson, James Oakes, Gordon Wood, Adolph Reed Jr.,...
Gordon Wood on a “distant democratic world that eerily resembles our own”
Historian Gordon Wood wonders if we are in a new “Age of Jackson.” Is Wood making a historical analogy? This is unusual for him. Here is a taste: Many people have compared Donald Trump’s presidency to that of Andrew Jackson...
The World Socialist Web Site hosts a conversation on the American Revolution
On July 4, 2020, Tom Mackaman and David North of the World Socialist Web Site hosted a conversation on the American Revolution with American historians Gordon Wood, Richard Carwardine, Victoria Bynum, Clayborne Carson, and James Oakes. All of these historians...
The World Socialist Web Site Gathers Historians to Discuss the American Revolution and the Civil War
The historians participating include Victoria Bynum, Clayborne Carson, Richard Cawardine, James Oakes, Gordon Wood, and Tom Mackaman. The conversation, moderated by Mackaman and World Socialist Web Site’s David North, will live-stream at 1:30pm EDT. Here is the press release: The...
Os Guinness’s Appeal to the Past is Deeply Problematic
Watch Christian speaker and author Os Guinness deliver a speech titled 1776 vs. 1789: the Roots of the Present Crisis. It is part of an event hosted by the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Someone sent it to me...
What Can We Learn from the 1619 Project?
Read all our posts on The New York Times 1619 Project here. Historian James Brewer Stewart has some good thoughts. Here is a taste of his piece at History News Network: But here’s what’s most important. Those of us who value...
The 1619 Project: Debate Continues
When we last left the debate on the 1619 Project, Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz leveled more criticism of the project in a piece at The Atlantic. Social media historians (and some non-historians who are advancing informed and not-so-informed opinions)...
Sean Wilentz’s Criticism of *The New York Times*’s 1619 Project
Some of you will remember Sean Wilentz‘s letter to The New York Times criticizing the newspaper’s 1619 Project. You can read it here. The letter is signed by Wilentz, Victoria Bynum, James McPherson, James Oakes, and Gordon Wood. With the...
The Fight Over the *New York Times* 1619 Project
I have said all I want to say about the 1619 Project. You can read my posts here. Over at The Atlantic, David Serwer tells the story behind the opposition to the project coming from historians Sean Wilentz, Victoria Bynum,...
Gordon Wood on the 1619 Project
Earlier this month we did a post on the World Socialist Website’s interview with James McPherson. The topic was The New York Times‘s 1619 Project. And now the same website has published an interview with historian Gordon Wood. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X9kREN0MXs&w=560&h=315]...
Gordon Wood Strikes Again!
I love reading Gordon Wood book reviews. I don’t always agree with him, but sometimes I do. Whether I agree with him or not, I must admit that I sometimes take guilty pleasure in watching him whip academic historians into...
Gordon Wood Reviews Stephen Brumwell’s *Turncoat*
Yesterday we posted an Author’s Corner interview with Stephen Brumwell, author of Turncoat: Benedict Arnold and the Crisis of American Liberty. Over at The Weekly Standard, Gordon Wood reviews the book. Here is a taste: It was once common knowledge, the story...
The Most Influential Act of Protest in History?
The Atlantic asks a “big question“: “What was the most influential act of protest in history?” The magazine have asked historians and others to answer this question. Here are some of the answers: The Stamp Act (This was Gordon Wood)...
The Author’s Corner with Gordon Wood
Gordon Wood is Professor Emeritus of History at Brown University. This interview is based on his new book, Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (Penguin Press, 2017). JF: What led you to write Friends Divided? GW: I had just edited three volumes of writings...
Obama the Historian
Check out Jennifer Schuessler’s New York Times piece on Barack Obama’s use of history during his presidency. Here is a taste: True, Mr. Obama may be unlikely to emulate Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and follow his years in the...
Alan Taylor Channels Gordon Wood
By now many of you have probably read a review of Alan Taylor‘s new synthesis of the American Revolution. (We will be featuring Taylor in an upcoming edition of the Author’s Corner. Stay tuned). Writing in The New York Times,...