AEI is right to honor the historian who has immeasurably advanced our understanding of the American Founding.

Gordon Wood is one of our most accomplished historians. The preeminent expert on the American Founding, Wood (now 91!) is the author of many works on the period, including but hardly limited to The Radicalism of the American Revolution, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History.

Now, this great historian will add another distinction to his repertoire: the Irving Kristol Award, the highest honor bestowed by the American Enterprise Institute. Announcing the award, AEI President Robert Doar said he “can think of no better way to mark this milestone than by honoring Professor Wood for his achievements in showing us how to understand that great turning point in world history,” especially as we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Wood is an eminently worthy recipient of this award. His work has illuminated the world-historical uniqueness of the American Revolution and the regime it created. In The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Wood writes that the revolution “did not just eliminate monarchy and create republics; it actually reconstituted what Americans meant by public or state power and brought about an entirely new kind of popular politics and a new kind of democratic officeholder.”

This perspective aligns with the Founders’ own understanding of their project. Defending the proposed Constitution in Federalist No. 14, Publius (James Madison, in that paper) describes the American Revolution as one “which has no parallel in the annals of human society.” In Federalist No. 9, Publius (Alexander Hamilton, this time) argues that the Constitution is based on an improvement in the “science of politics” concerning limiting government. And in Federalist No. 84, Publius (Hamilton, again) explicitly distinguished the Constitution from its British precedents.

The American experiment was not a complete break from the past; it owed much to the wisdom of the ages. This is one of the many reasons why, unusual for revolutions, it worked. (Another reason: The Founders were great men, as Wood has explained elsewhere.) But in synthesizing that wisdom, and in applying it to their political situation, the Founders created something unprecedented, which it is our responsibility to maintain. Gordon Wood has helped us understand that.

And he has helped me understand that. I am what you might call a Gordon Wood fanboy. I was assigned to read The Radicalism of the American Revolution in high school. Reading this work at a formative age shaped my views on the subject. But it did more than that. At my all-male high school, my classmates and I became obsessed with Wood and came to view him as a cult figure. I propitiated the cult on Labor Day in 2010, when I called in to CSPAN’s Book TV and got to ask the eminent historian a question about how he views his profession. (I come in around the 52-minute mark.) His answer only made me respect him more:

I like to think that I’m writing the truth. I try to transcend these arguments if I can. I’ve been accused of being the liberals’ favorite historian, but then I’m attacked for being a defender of the right. So I’m attacked from both sides, so I feel I must be saying something somewhere in the middle, and probably, I hope, closer to the truth than either of the extremes.

This approach contrasts strongly with that of, among others, Howard Zinn. Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is an avowedly left-wing history, largely of the dark side of America. Zinn and Wood are linked in the popular imagination because of a scene in Good Will Hunting in which the (annoying) titular character, supposedly a hardscrabble undiscovered genius (played by Matt Damon), upbraids a stuck-up Harvardian for “regurgitating Gordon Wood” instead of reading the allegedly superior Zinn. But Zinn’s history is compromised, and clearly agenda-driven. Contrast that with Wood, who told me in 2010 that he “had no intention of writing for one party or another” when producing his scholarship. Zinn’s approach has nonetheless won out to a considerable extent in the academy. The academy and history as a discipline have suffered as a result. They could use more Wood.

AEI’s honoring of Gordon Wood is fitting in another way. After my high school experience, I resolved someday to meet him in person. Two years ago, at AEI itself, I finally had my chance. He was cordial and sporting — so much so that he signed my high school copy of The Radicalism of the American Revolution.

All honor to Wood: the man who has immeasurably advanced our understanding of the American Founding — as well as my own appreciation for it.