LAMAMIMET

Gordon Stewart Wood was born on November 27, 1933, in Concord, Massachusetts, and grew up in Worcester and Waltham. He graduated summa cum laude from Tufts University in 1955, earned a master’s degree while serving in the U.S. Air Force in Japan, and completed his Ph.D. at Harvard under Bernard Bailyn in 1964.

He taught at several leading institutions, including Harvard, the College of William and Mary, the University of Michigan, and Brown University, where he served as a professor of history. Wood’s scholarship reshaped understanding of the American Revolution; his 1992 book The Radicalism of the American Revolution won the Pulitzer Prize for History, and his earlier work The Creation of the American Republic earned the Bancroft Prize. He also received the National Humanities Medal in 2010 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

In addition to his academic contributions, Wood wrote influential essays for publications such as The New York Review of Books and appeared in popular culture, notably being mentioned in the film Good Will Hunting. He married Louise Goss in 1956 and had three children. Wood died on June 7, 2026, after being struck by a vehicle, leaving a lasting legacy as one of the foremost interpreters of early American history.