This episode of Stubborn Things comes out a week ahead of schedule, and this one’s for the historiography nerds. This week, Jay and Sean discuss the legacy of historian Gordon Wood, who passed away earlier this month, and the historiography of the American founding. Our hosts lead us on a tour from Charles Beard’s economic interpretation of the founding and framing of the constitution to the “consensus historians” of the mid-20th century who responded to Beard’s theory. Then, they address the shift in the way history was done, with the emergence of Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood, and others, all of whom emphasized that the American founding was ideological in nature. Jay and Sean also analyze new histories of the founding, including social histories and critical histories, like the 1619 Project. The episode concludes with a dialogue on how to think about the founders and the founding, 250 years on.

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Show notes:

Gordon S. Wood, a Historian Who Loved America

Gordon Wood Accepts the 2025 Irving Kristol Award, AEI Annual Dinner 2025

George Bancroft’s History of the United States of America

Charles Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States

Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

Gordon Wood’s The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 and The Radicalism of the American Revolution

Joyce Appleby’s Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s and Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination

Lance Banning’s The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic

Rogers Smith’s Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History