Power and Liberty with Gordon Wood

The latter half of the 18th century in America witnessed one of the greatest eras of constitution-making in history, resulting in a document that has governed this country for over 200 years. Join us as we host Dr. Gordon Wood, America’s preeminent historian of the Revolutionary era, as we discuss ideas, debates, and innovations that resulted in this astounding document.

Lectures are free and open to the public. Since seating is limited, reservations are strongly encouraged. Lecture walk-ins will be accommodated first come, first served.

Gordon S. Wood is Alva O. Way University Professor Emeritus at Brown University. He received his B.A. degree from Tufts University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. He taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty at Brown in 1969. He is the author of many works, including The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (1969), which won the Bancroft Prize and the John H. Dunning Prize in 1970, and The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992), which won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize in 1993. The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin (2004) was awarded the Julia Ward Howe Prize by the Boston Authors Club in 2005. His book Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different was published in 2006, The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History was published in 2008, and The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States in 2011. His volume in the Oxford History of the United State entitled Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (2009) was given the Association of American Publishers Award for History and Biography in 2009, the American History Book Prize by the New York Historical Society for 2010, and the Society of the Cincinnati History Prize in 2010. In 2011, he was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President Obama and the Churchill Bell by Colonial Williamsburg. In 2011 he also received the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Award from the Society of American Historians. In 2012, he received an award from the John Carter Brown Library and the John F. Kennedy Medal from the Massachusetts Historical Society. In 2015, he received the Centennial Medal from the Harvard University Graduate School, and in 2016, he received the Redwood Library Medal for Contributions to American History and Culture. His most recent book is Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution (2021). Professor Wood is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.