GORDON S. WOOD, Pulitzer prize-winning historian, will be honored by the Redwood Library as the second recipient of the Abraham Redwood Medal for Contributions to American History and Culture. Wood is the Alva O. Way University professor emeritus at Brown University.
Your talk at the Redwood Library is titled “Advice to the Egyptians (and other Arabs) from the Founding Fathers.” Without giving too much away, what is the premise?
Three years ago in March of 2013, CSIS, a think tank in Washington, D.C., invited about 30 Egyptians from all walks of life to America to discuss the Arab Spring. I was asked to describe the American Revolution to help them understand their revolution. My talk is what I told the Egyptians.
Much of your professional work has been dedicated to studying the American Revolution – why does this particular era of American history interest you?
The American Revolution is the most important event in American history, bar none. Not only did it legally create the nation, but it infused into our culture all of our highest aspirations and ideals, our belief in liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness of all our people.
As someone who has written extensively about the Founding Fathers, what do you think they would have to say about the political landscape of America in 2016?
They would have been appalled. Even in their own time, Jefferson was very upset at the candidacy of Andrew Jackson. He thought he was temperamentally unfit to be president. Fortunately, he died before Jackson’s actual election.
What’s one lesson we can learn from early-American history that still applies?
That we don’t know the future and therefore we need prudence in what we do. •
