I was in a local ABQ used bookstore today (Organic Books) and found a book of book reviews from Gordon Wood entitled, The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History (2008). I have read a couple of essays already, and found them fascinating and brilliant--but also beginning to notice Wood's frustration with various modern historians, which has left Wood open to what I still see as harsh judgments against Wood. What I found interesting is several reviews in the book first appeared in the New York Review of Books. When checking with the NYRB archive on line, though, I found instances of historians whose books he reviewed who failed to respond in the NYRB letters section. For me, I have said failing to respond to a negative or critical review in the NYRB is a sign of intellectual cowardice, though I would hesitate to make an overall judgment of those historians for that failure to respond.
Be that as it may, while doing a wider online search of Wood and the historians whose books he was reviewing, I came across a critical review of Wood's recent book on Jefferson and Adams in Law & Liberty magazine, a culturally conservative, yet pro-capitalist libertarian magazine. The review was from a former doctoral student of Wood's, C. Bradley Thompson, himself is known as a cultural conservative and libertarian of the hard line capitalist persuasion.
I post here to say Thompson's criticism of Wood's book is one I strongly support and agree with. As with Thompson, I have long believed Wood has remained too devoted to the late 19th through much of the 20th Century historians' over-veneration of Jefferson, and, simultaneously, dismissal of John Adams. Thompson makes the type of case I would hope to have been able to make on behalf of Adams, while revealing Jefferson's limitations as being a man devoted to "democracy" and being a "man of the people." The essay (more than a review) is an excellent and compelling read--though I am surprised Thompson did not cite Adams' remarks concerning his fear of a commercial aristocracy, though that link is from a book written nearly seven years after the review. I don't think Thompson chose the title of his essay-review, which I believe is more dismissive of Wood than Thompson likely intended.
This leads me to say the following: It continues to be both sad and amusing for me to see how Wood, who in 2007, was the subject of criticism from Stephen F. Hayward for being too "anti-capitalist" and the "liberals'" favorite historian, is now too often viewed as a conservative, even reactionary historian--particularly as a result of Wood's essentially correct critique of the "1619 Project."
In the last four or five decades, Wood has really not fundamentally changed his essential view of American history. Wood has definitely deepened, and made room for modifications of, his views, yes. But has he fundamentally changed his essential view of US History? No. I say that, however, not as a criticism, but as a testament to Wood's greatness as an overall scholar from the time he began as a professional historian--particularly with books such as Radicalism of the American Revolution, The Creation of the American Republic, and Empire of Liberty. Yet, the world of historians and political commentators have gone from viewing Wood as a liberal anti-capitalist, devoted to New Deal values, to a pro-Establishment and even conservative historian--all without Wood moving much in any particular direction from where he has nearly always been. Wood himself, at age 89, must be scratching his head over this perception with the same elements of sadness and amusement.
Other than his conclusions about Jefferson and Adams, what I most admire about Wood is his consistent recognition of ironies in history. This recognition has kept Wood from falling into historical trends that turn into fads. For example, Wood recognized our Founders were mercantilists, not capitalists, which caused Wood to be less enamored with Charles Beard's historiography than other historians of Beard's time. Wood came of age in the 1950s, and was definitely influenced by consensus-historians, which has its virtues and limitations. Wood has certainly never been a Marxian sort of historian, even as Wood again recognized and wrote reasonably positively about anti-capitalist tendencies in American ideals and society during the 18th and 19th Centuries. Recently, Wood's same sense of ironies in history has led him to avoid becoming attached to modern historians who appear to seek to turn American history into a continuing cultural war, which even Marxian oriented historians, such as the outstanding Adolph Reed, have been critical of such historians for either misunderstanding or obscuring diverse and countervailing economic and political patterns within US History. It is of a moment to note the first major attack on the "1619 Project" came from the Worldwide Socialist Web.
Nonetheless, as I hinted near the start of this blog post, I can sense, in reading the last and another essay in the book of essay-book reviews, there is an element of "old guy" frustration (crankiness?) embedded in some of Wood's criticisms of younger historians' (and, most amusingly, the late Theodore Draper, who was older than Wood by nearly two decades!) focus away from the role of ideas in US History. Too many critiques of Wood are now insinuating Wood was and is against women's history, African-American history, etc. However, Wood has been clear these newer histories have enhanced the study of history, and made our nation's history vibrant for modern readers. Where the critiques against Wood then tend to go is to question Wood's integrity as to whether he believes what he claims--which, in my view, is unfair to Wood as an individual person.
Also, Wood is not a presentist type of historian, but it is wrong to deny, in any way, that Wood wants us to learn from our history. He most certainly does want us to learn from history. What Wood the historian wants, however, is for readers and citizens to remember, not obscure or forget, context when discussing historical figures and making judgments regarding such figures. The irony of his former doctoral student's, Thompson's, review from Law & Liberty is how Thompson revealed where Wood has been still, in both our views, wrongly clinging to the earlier historian consensus regarding Adams and Jefferson, a "tradition" which goes back to Claude Bowers and even to George Bancroft. My criticism of Bowers and Bancroft, and now Wood, is they often failed or fail to provide sufficient context in the worlds in which Adams and Jefferson were operating, and, worse, not adequately recognizing Jefferson's cynical political maneuvers compared to Adams' stubborn, though, also naive, belief that statesmen and leaders of the then-new Republic should remain above partisan politics. Those of us who admire Adams, though, cannot get around the Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798, and Jefferson's strong, fairly consistent, and ultimately correct, opposition to those heinous acts. It is where Thompson and I must yield space and merit to those critical of Adams.
The ultimate irony for me is Thompson's criticism of Wood in Law & Liberty magazine may just as easily be seen as a left-oriented critique of Wood as much as a libertarian, and possibly a culturally conservative critique--all at the same time. This is why I find myself frustrated at the way in which modern historians and commentators are tossing Wood from one political persuasion to another, without giving Wood his due as an historian and scholar, and not evaluating Wood in a good faith manner. Thompson clearly reveres his former doctoral adviser, and is willing to debate Wood in good faith. Would (pun intended?) that be the case in the way I am seeing Wood portrayed, particularly from those I otherwise find myself in political agreement. I find myself in a strange place, but I persevere. :)
