Tom Woods

For other people named Tom Woods, see Tom Woods (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Thomas Wood.

Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Woods in February 2011.
Born	(1972-08-01) August 1, 1972 Melrose, Massachusetts
Occupation(s)	Historian, scholar
Academic career
School or tradition	Austrian School
Alma mater	Harvard University (B.A.) Columbia University (M.Phil., Ph.D.)
Influences	Ludwig von Mises, Murray N. Rothbard, Ralph Raico, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Ron Paul, Robert Nisbet, Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Website	tomwoods.com

Thomas E. "Tom" Woods, Jr. (born August 1, 1972) is an American historian, political analyst, and author. Woods is a New York Times best-selling author and has published eleven books. He has written extensively on the subjects of American history, contemporary politics, and economics. Woods considers himself a libertarian and a proponent of the Austrian school of economics. He operates LibertyClassroom.com, a pay-for-access educational website which offers audio and video content on topics in history, economics, and philosophy.

Education and affiliations

Woods holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, both in History. He is a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama and a member of the editorial board for the Institute's Libertarian Papers. Woods is also an associate scholar of the Abbeville Institute, in McClellanville, South Carolina. The Abbeville Institute promotes the cultural inheritance of the American Southern tradition as "a valuable intellectual and spiritual resource for exposing and correcting the errors of American modernity," as opposed to "colleges and universities [which] have come to be dominated by the ideologies of multiculturalism and political correctness.

Woods was an ISI Richard M. Weaver Fellow in 1995–96. Woods was also the recipient of the 2004 O.P. Alford III Prize for Libertarian Scholarship and of an Olive W. Garvey Fellowship from the Independent Institute in 2003. He has additionally been awarded two Humane Studies Fellowships and a Claude R. Lambe Fellowship from the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. His 2005 book The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy won the $50,000 first prize in the 2006 Templeton Enterprise Awards.

Woods is co-editor of an eleven-volume collection of articles Exploring American History: From Colonial Times to 1877.

Catholicism, American history, and Politically Incorrect Guide

Woods' best-selling 2004 book

Woods is a convert to the Roman Catholic Church from Lutheranism and author of How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. For eleven years, he was associate editor of The Latin Mass Magazine, which advocates traditional Catholicism. As a traditional Catholic, he advocates the Extraordinary Form of the Mass and cultural conservatism.

Woods's book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History was on the The New York Times Best Seller list for paperbacks in 2005. His 2009 book Meltdown was similarly listed in 2009. His writing has also appeared in numerous popular and scholarly periodicals, including the American Historical Review, the Christian Science Monitor, Investor's Business Daily, Modern Age, American Studies, Journal of Markets & Morality, New Oxford Review, The Freeman, Independent Review, Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, AD2000, Crisis, Human Rights Review, Catholic Historical Review, the Catholic Social Science Review and The American Conservative.

Views on conservatism

Tom Woods at CPAC in February 2010.

In articles he has written dealing with the political spectrum of Americans, Woods makes a sharp distinction between paleoconservative thinkers with whom he sympathizes, and neoconservative thinkers. In articles, lectures and interviews Woods traces the intellectual and political distinction between the older conservative, or paleoconservative, school of thought and the neoconservative school of thought. Of the latter he writes:

The conservative's traditional sympathy for the American South and its people and heritage, evident in the works of such great American conservatives as Richard M. Weaver and Russell Kirk, began to disappear.... [T]he neocons are heavily influenced by Woodrow Wilson, with perhaps a hint of Theodore Roosevelt.... They believe in an aggressive U.S. presence practically everywhere, and in the spread of democracy around the world, by force if necessary.... Neoconservatives tend to want more efficient government agencies; paleoconservatives want fewer government agencies. They generally admire President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his heavily interventionist New Deal policies. Neoconservatives have not exactly been known for their budget consciousness, and you won’t hear them talking about making any serious inroads into the federal apparatus.

Controversy on League of the South membership

In a review of Woods's Politically Incorrect Guide to American History published in The Weekly Standard, historian Max Boot criticized Woods for being a founding member of the League of the South, which Boot noted advocates secession and "also counsels "white Southerners" that they should not "give control over their civilization and its institutions to another race, whether it be native blacks or Hispanic immigrants". A winter 2006 Intelligence Report by the Southern Poverty Law Center also criticized Woods's membership in the League, which the report described as "a Southern secessionist group with white supremacist ideology". Additionally, Eric L. Muller, Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor in Jurisprudence and Ethics and Associate Dean for Faculty Development at the University of North Carolina School of Law, noted that Woods was "a frequent contributor to the League's journal, The Southern Patriot, and has spoken at its conventions"; Muller also noted that Woods, in an essay for the League's journal (the Southern Patriot), had characterized nineteenth century abolitionists as "utterly reprehensible agitators who put metaphysical abstractions ahead of prudence, charity, and rationality".

Woods replied on LewRockwell.com, writing that when he was 21 he attended a meeting of scholars and journalists interested in starting an organizing to assert the legitimate rights of the states. Although as a northerner he preferred the group target the whole nation, he accepted the groups' decision to focus on the south because he was "convinced that in spite of those aspects of Southern history that all reasonable people deplore, that there was much of value in Southern civilization that deserved a fair hearing." He also supported the right to secession as "a salutary restraint" on the federal government. He explained that for these reasons he maintained an intermittent membership in the League. He played no day-to-day role in the organization and was not responsible for politically incorrect statements he heard were on the League’s web site. He wrote that as an Armenian, he saw no reason why Anglo-Celts should not be "allowed to preserve their culture". Woods wrote that "racism" is "a word that is thrown around at everyone who looks cockeyed at Jesse Jackson" and found it "revealing that white supremacist organizations have repeatedly and vocally condemned the League".

Bibliography

As author

• The Great Façade: Vatican II and the Regime of Novelty in the Catholic Church (co-authored with Christopher Ferrara; 2002) ISBN 1-890740-10-1
• The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era (2004) ISBN 0-231-13186-0
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (2004) ISBN 0-89526-047-6
• The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy (2005) ISBN 0-7391-1036-5
• How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (2005) ISBN 0-89526-038-7
• 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask (2007) ISBN 0-307-34668-4
• Sacred Then and Sacred Now: The Return of the Old Latin Mass (2007) ISBN 978-0-9793540-2-1
• W obronie zdrowego rozsadku (2007)
• Who Killed the Constitution?: The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush (co-authored with Kevin Gutzman; 2008) ISBN 978-0-307-40575-3)
• Beyond Distributism (2008)
• Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse (February 2009) (ISBN 1-5969-8587-9) & (ISBN 978-1-5969-8587-2)
• Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century (2010) ISBN 1-59698-149-0
• Rollback: Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse (2011) ISBN 1-59698-141-5

As editor

• Choate, Rufus (2002). The Political Writings of Rufus Choate. Gateway Editions. ISBN 0-89526-154-5.
• Brownson, Orestes (2003, reprint of 1875 edition). The American Republic. Gateway Editions. ISBN 0-89526-072-7. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)
• Rothbard, Murray (2007). The Betrayal of the American Right. Ludwig von Mises Institute. ISBN 978-1-933550-13-8.
• We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now. Basic Books. 2007. ISBN 1-56858-385-0. (Co-edited with Murray Polner.)
• Back on the Road to Serfdom: The Resurgence of Statism. ISI. 2010. ISBN 978-1-935191-90-2.

External links

• Thomas Woods Official web site (with appearances schedule)
• Liberty Classroom
• Thomas Woods archive at LewRockwell.com
• Thomas Woods media archive at Mises.org
• Thomas Woods archive at TheAmericanConservative.com
• Thomas Woods archive at CrisisMagazine.com
• Thomas Woods archive at HumanEvents.com
• Thomas Woods archive at Independent.org
• Thomas Woods archive at ISI.org
• The Catholic Church: Builder of Civilization