Activity of the Week: Gordon Wood at BU

I couple of weeks ago I heard that famed historian Gordon Wood would be speaking at BU on May 3rd. I debated announcing this over the blog, but did not want to get everyone all hyped up about their favorite historian speaking. I didn't think security would be ready for all our followers to flood the BU lecture hall. To put this in perspective, seeing Gordon Wood speak about the American Revolution is equatable to witnessing Ted Williams with the Red Sox, Michael Jordan with the Bulls, or seeing Frank Sinatra sing in a cocktail bar. Ok... so maybe I am the only one that felt that way, but Wood stands alone as the foremost authority on early American history since Howard Zinn passed away earlier this year. Gordon Wood is an American Historian and professor emeritus at Brown University, specializing in 18th century history and the American Revolution. He has authored numerous prize winning books and I highly recommend any of them. The Radicalism of the American Revolution is arguably his best.
Today the talk was about the spread of democracy as a result of the American Revolution and the influences of American ideals regarding life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness on revolutions succeeding the American Revolution. He spoke about the English origins of the colonists and their desire to be a self-governed people. Wood believes that the American Revolution is the single most important occurrence in the history of the United States. He went on to explain how the Revolution defined us as a people and how the beliefs established in the Revolution go on to shape our entire history and particularly our interaction with other nations. Following the Revolution the newly formed American's supported all other revolutions, other than the Haitian Revolution (for obvious reasons at the time), and the Americans grew to embrace the ideals as a universally acceptable way of life.
His hour long lecture taught me more than I have learned in some semester-long classes. I was a little surprised that the auditorium was not full. There were about 70 people in the hall and the event was open to the public, although it was not highly advertised. One thing that was a little annoying was the BU department professors asking questions. They tended to ramble on for a while. I think in the back of their minds they wanted to cherish speaking to Gordon Wood for as long as possible. I don't blame them.
Here is a brief clip of Gordon Wood talking about the significance of the American Revolution.