Professor Gordon Wood American Revolution May 8, 1999 Listen: AU File :: WAV file :: MP3 file    Read: Transcript

Gordon Wood is Professor of History at Brown University. He is one of the foremost scholars on the American Revolution in the country. His book, "The Radicalism of the American Revolution," won the Pulitzer Prize in 1991. It is considered among the definitive works on the social, political and economic consequences of the Revolutionary War. Edmund Morgan, Professor Emeritus of Yale University in his review of this book for the New York Times called it "a tour de force. This is a book that could redirect historical thinking about the Revolution and its place in the national consciousness." In the book, Professor Wood gives readers a revolution that transformed an almost feudal society into a democratic one, whose emerging realities sometimes baffled and disappointed its founding fathers. Professor Wood has written numerous other books, including "The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787," which was nominated for the National Book Award. He was involved in Ken Burn's PBS production on Thomas Jefferson, is contributing his expertise in the National Constitution Center being built in Philadelphia and regularly devotes a portion of his time teaching history to high school students around the country.