Remembering Gordon Wood, 1933–2026 – Econlib

I first met Gordon Wood in the late 1980s, when I was a graduate student attending a roundtable organized by the Institute for Humane Studies, an organization devoted to exploring ideas of freedom and the open society, now based at George Mason University. For a young academic, it was an important occasion, bringing together several prominent scholars of American history. Two stood out in particular for the evident interest they took in the work of younger historians: Gordon Wood and Jack Greene.

Our discussions ranged over the nature of historical context, the place of biographical evidence in interpreting the past, and the craft of joining narrative with analysis. I have not forgotten those exchanges. The enthusiasm for the subject and generosity toward me, then a mere novice, drew me into questions that have held my attention ever since. As I later learned, Wood and Greene were longtime friends, and their example showed what friendship could mean among scholars committed to historical understanding—especially when differences of opinion were not merely acknowledged but welcomed in the pursuit of truth.

Years later, when I joined the educational foundation where I would spend most of my professional life, I had the great pleasure of continuing to work with both scholars. Each had long been involved with Liberty Fund in various capacities—as conference participants, directors, and later as book editors.

Wood’s early concentration on the Founding drew him naturally to Liberty Fund’s bicentennial programs over the creation and ratification of the Constitution, organized by two other leading political theorists of the day, Eugene Miller and William Allen. In those seminars, Wood became a principal voice in challenging long-held liberal Lockean interpretations of the American experiment and in carrying forward the republican insights of his Harvard mentor, Bernard Bailyn.

That interpretive framework, first developed in The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (1969), placed classical republican understandings at the center of debates over the making of the Constitution. From that point forward, Wood’s scholarship and his work with Liberty Fund proceeded in tandem, returning again and again to the major themes of the American political tradition.

Wood later examined the liberal and democratic challenge to republicanism in The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992) and its eventual ascendancy in the early republic in Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (2009). One of the enduring intellectual tensions he left for later generations to ponder is the emergence of a liberal democratic culture within an essentially classical republican constitutional order. Although these three books are usually recognized as Wood’s seminal contributions to the field, they were far from his only contributions. He also produced numerous monographs and acclaimed studies, including The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States (2011), Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (2017), and Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution (2021).

In recognition of those achievements, Wood received numerous honors, including the Bancroft Prize in 1970, the Pulitzer Prize in 1993, and the National Humanities Medal in 2010. Liberty Fund likewise honored his lifetime contributions to the understanding of American ideas and institutions by naming him the first recipient of the George F. Will Award in 2024.

That work was still continuing as the nation approached the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence.

Wood had already taken a central part in the early planning for the foundation’s programs marking the 250th anniversary of American independence and was scheduled for several online and in-person appearances, including programs with his longtime friend, fellow historian, and interlocutor, Jack Greene. These efforts were intended to draw on Wood’s vast knowledge and understanding and to deepen the intellectual engagement of younger generations of scholars as they entered the ranks of teachers and faculty.

Those programs will go on, just as he would have wanted them to, but in that endeavor there will now be a profound absence that simply cannot be filled. We will miss his unfailing charm, his generosity of spirit, and that infectious curiosity that made every inquiry into the past not just a scientific enterprise, but an adventure.

Our hearts and our thoughts go out to his family, friends and students.

Hans Eicholz is a Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund.