Dad, criminal defense attorney, reader, golfer, runner, and all the rest. The measure of who we are is what we do. We have a lot of limited time, use it well.
We are devastated by the sudden loss of Gordon Wood. Known to many as one of the foremost scholars on the American Revolution, Gordon was also a teacher of generations of students and other historians who, like him, help us better understand who we are as a country and a people. He will be greatly missed. Our thoughts are with his family, his many friends and all who he touched throughout his remarkable life.
On Sunday, my friend Gordon Wood was struck and killed in a car accident. Gordon taught history at Brown Univ. and was among the most accomplished historians America has produced. He won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for The Radicalism of the American Revolution, and his earlier book The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 took the 1970 Bancroft Prize. He also received the National Humanities Medal.
He was, in my view, the finest historian of America's founding—which makes it all the sadder that he did not live to see the nation's 250th birthday. His reputation reached popular culture, too. Matt Damon's character in Good Will Hunting invokes him by name in the famous bar scene, accusing a Harvard student of simply "regurgitating Gordon Wood, talking about [...] the pre-Revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization."
I feel fortunate to have collaborated with Gordon on several projects. In a 2019 anthology I compiled, he wrote an essay on the possibility of a shared American narrative. He centered his argument on equal rights as "the most radical and most powerful ideological force" the Revolution unleashed. "This powerful sense of equality is still alive and well in America," he wrote, "and despite all of its disturbing and unsettling consequences, it is what makes us one people."
When I needed jacket blurbs for my new book Lincoln's Compass, coming out this November, I turned to Gordon. The fit was natural: the book argues that Abraham Lincoln took the Declaration's claim that "all men are created equal" as his guiding moral compass—and that he refocused the nation on that claim. Gordon, ever the gentleman, offered generous praise.
He was, in many respects, the dean of American historians. He will be very hard to replace.
Believe it or not but Hunter Biden is far more human and likeable than anyone could've imagined. It's easy to picture some out of his mind nepo-baby when stolen videos of a man in his worst hours are your only exposure to him.
@HunterBiden, preach! Honesty, integrity, and intellect. Good and bad. We have all been through a version of it or love someone who has gone through it.
The people telling us not to like and appreciate Hunter Biden "because he's a junkie" are the same people drinking raw milk and letting their kids die from measles because a junkie told them to.
Those people can all get fucked.
Things most Americans agree on:
Groceries cost too much.
Tariffs suck and make no sense.
Congress and Presidents shouldn’t trade stocks.
The debt is a mess.
The border should be secure, but legal immigration is good.
Endless wars are stupid, especially ones that nobody wants and have never been explained.
Americans are exhausted.
AI is like my new best friend that also might be trying to take my job, my ability to think for myself, and my humanity in the process. Yo like I love you, but WTF, but I still love you.
Diversity is actually awesome! The opposite is boring AF.
Canadians are super fucking cool.
Mexicans are chill.
Putin isn’t a good guy looking out for America’s best interest. Rocky IV and Miracle are great movies.
Good neighbors are a blessing.
Freedom of religion and coexistence without having to blow each other up is probably a good idea.
We all question, are we alone in the universe?
We all fuck up along the way.
Epstein didn’t hang himself.
The Trumps and Epstein were best friends for decades. It’s like Bert trying to tell us Ernie was just an acquaintance in the same social scene on Sesame Street back in the day.
The Cowboys suck. Go Birds!
Things we’re told to fight about:
Me.
Laptop.
Vaccines.
Transgenders in sports.
Pronouns.
That’s the joke.