Professor of History at Columbia University; author of CRIMES AGAINST NATURE, SHADOWS AT DAWN: A BORDERLANDS MASSACRE AND THE VIOLENCE OF HISTORY; and THE STRANGE CAREER OF WILLIAM ELLIS. Working on a new project on the US-Mexico War (1846-1848).
Karl Jacoby
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What a loss!!
Gordon Wood was hit by a vehicle in a parking lot.
SLOW DOWN please.
Deep condolences to his family & former students and all who knew him.
Today, the AAUP released the Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2025–26.
It is sobering.
Full-time faculty salaries are down about 0.4% in real, inflation-adjusted terms. Average full-time faculty salaries remain 9.5% below fall 2019 & about 5.8% below fall 2008.
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When I had students ask me why they should take US history in college when they took it in high school—“I got a 5 on the AP!”—I would tell them it was because now I could teach them things that they wouldn’t have been allowed to learn in high school because someone’s parents would’ve been mad.
OAH is saddened to learn the news about the passing of preeminent historian of early America, Gordon Wood. https://ow.ly/TTLG50Z8ZoT
This year's Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession finds that faculty salaries are still losing ground to inflation and expands data collection on part-time faculty pay.
Gordon S. Wood, the scholar who forged an influential and sharply debated narrative of the country's early years of independence through such works as "The Creation of the American Republic" and "The Radicalism of the American Revolution," has died. He was 92.
https://to.pbs.org/4vvI1n9
In honor of the Knicks making the finals: reposting Marie's piece on "Linsanity" from a few years back.
mariemyungoklee.substack.com/p/just-a-rem...
RIP Gordon Wood: "His name may have been most widely known, though, for being included in a memorable monologue that Matt Damon’s title character delivers in the 1997 film 'Good Will Hunting,' skewering a Harvard student’s academic pretensions."
www.nytimes.com/2026/06/08/b...
Erin Grievances
Yes, if you're complaining about someone based on their race and nationality, that is racism.
The Organization of American Historians
RIP Gordon Wood
youtu.be/hIdsjNGCGz4?...
Lots more to say but for now just noting that I’m traveling - and carrying Gordon’s 2021 (updated for 2026) book bc I’m doing a reading event w a Brown alum group next week. Had just told him about it. GSW 1933-2026
In theory, "advanced placement" course in high schools are meant to give students a head start on college-level work, but in practice these courses serve as *replacements* for that college-level work, and very poor ones at that.
At OUP, we are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Gordon Wood. He was a brilliant thinker and writer. Our condolences to his family and to all his devoted readers. We will miss him.
Karl Jacoby
PBS News
Karl Jacoby
AAUP
Karin Wulf
Ian Carrillo
Kevin M. Kruse
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
Kind of interesting essay with a bad title, but IDK how you talk about problems in historical education today without even saying the words "advanced placement."
Elliot
Unable to agree on how to interpret the American story, the country’s schools, universities, and political institutions have stopped trying to tell it at all.
In a Pulitzer-winning book, “The Radicalism of the American Revolution,” he wrote that the colonists rose up against an entire worldview, not just against taxation.
Police say Wood died Sunday after being struck by a car in a supermarket parking lot in East Providence, Rhode Island.
www.pbs.org
www.nytimes.com
I'm actually a fan of performative/ opportunistic fan-ship as I love the Knicks, the Mets is my team (also they got their blue from the Dodgers) largely for what they represent: losing but continuing ...
