Here is an interesting presentation done at Chautauqua Institution with Pulitzer Prize for History Winner Gordon Wood. This was on Fora-TV.

http://fora.tv/2009/08/25/Why_America_Wa...

Here is a Summary of the Presentation itself:

Pulitzer Prize for History recipient Gordon Wood traces the history of American efforts to promote democracy around the world from the French Revolution to current involvement in the Middle East.

As far back as the 19th century, the identity of America has been linked to its central role in sparking republican revolutions around the world.

Who is Gordon Woods?

Gordon Wood - Gordon S. Wood is Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History at Brown University. He received his B.A. degree from Tufts University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. He taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty at Brown in 1969.

He is the author of many works, including The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (Chapel Hill, 1969), which won the Bancroft Prize and the John H. Dunning Prize in 1970, and The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1992), which won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize in 1993.

Wikipedia Article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_S._W...

His Faculty page at Brown

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/History...

Gordon Wood on the New York Review of Books

http://www.nybooks.com/authors/53

This is the Boston University's History and Civic Education: The Learning of Liberty for Civic Life - Gordon Wood participated

http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/buniverse/video...

Wood delivers the keynote address and his presentation includes the following provocative discussion points:

"Wood discusses the reasons present-day citizens continue to turn to the Founding Fathers for guidance. “Why do we ask ourselves, What would Thomas Jefferson think of affirmative action? or What would George Washington think of the war in Iraq?” he says. “We go back to their ideas and their aspirations to reaffirm and refresh our own identities. Equality, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were the greatest ideals to come out of our country’s founding, and it’s only natural that we should go back to the Founding Fathers to learn what kind of people we are.”

Wood explains that while the Founding Fathers were not demigods, they were also not democrats. They were not embarrassed by talk of elitism and never hid their sense of superiority over ordinary people, but they were also never contemptuous of ordinary people. “There was a nice balance between their democratic and aristocratic values,” he says.

The Founding Fathers were less concerned with bloodlines and wealth and more concerned with gentlemanly traits, according to Wood. “To be a gentleman was to think and act with reason and to be free of prejudice,” he says. “Basically, being a gentleman encompassed all of the characteristics that today make up a liberal arts degree.”

There is also a video presentation by Wood on "The American Revolution: A History"

You can watch the video of the Booknotes program by clicking on Watch Video on the Right Nav.

http://www.booknotes.org/Program/?Progra...

Some books by Gordon Wood which some may be interested in:













Some of the above were very illuminating about the Founding Fathers.