The Truth About American History: An Austro-Jeffersonian Perspective. A Seminar with Thomas Woods

Thomas E. Woods, history professor at Suffolk Community College, is a prolific specialist in American Colonial history, the Progressive Era, and modern political history, and the author an important intellectual history of the progressive era as well as an evaluation of Catholic social thought in light of Austrian economics. Most famously, he is the author of the bestselling book The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (Regnery 2004), a book that generated more controversy than any history book in recent years. He is also a very gifted teacher.

Professor Woods did his undergraduate work at Harvard and received his PhD from Columbia University, and knows the mainstream material as well or better than its practioners. But he is also very well school in Austrian economics and the historical revisionist method of Murray N. Rothbard.

His plan in this seminar is to cover the material in his books but also fill in many details that defend the Jeffersonian-Rothbardian perspective. Here is the cutting edge of libertarian history that completely rethinks the meaning and impact of the welfare-warfare state.

The seminar will consist of two primary lectures per day for five days, June 20-June 24, 2005, and discussion time with the professor. The Seminar is open to full-time students (no charge for qualifying students), faculty, and current Members of the Mises Institute. Registration is $125 for Mises Institute Members and faculty, including daily boxed lunches and refreshment breaks, and the use of Mises Institute research libraries and computers. Dormitory rooms are available for $35 per person per night double-occupancy or $45 per night single-occupancy.

Students may apply for tuition scholarship. 

Readings

The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2004)

Schedule

Monday, June 20

• 9:30 a.m. shuttle from Commons Dorm/AU Hotel to Mises Institute
• 10:00-11:30 Thomas Jefferson and the Principles of ‘98
• 1:00 - 2:00 Lunch
• 2:00 - 3:30 States’ Rights in Theory and Practice
• 7:00 Movie

Tuesday, June 21

• 10:00-11:30 The States’ Rights Tradition Nobody Knows
• 1:00 - 2:00 Lunch
• 2:00 - 3:30 The Fourteenth Amendment

Wednesday, June 22

• 10:00 - 11:30 The Great Depression, World War II, and American Prosperity, Part I
• 1:00 - 2:00 Lunch
• 2:00 - 3:30 The Great Depression, World War II, and American Prosperity, Part II
• 7:00 Movie

Thursday, June 23

• 10:00 - 11:30 Major Episodes in American Labor History: An Austrian Reevaluation, Part I
• Noon - 1:00 lunch
• 2:00 - 3:30 Major Episodes in American Labor History:  An Austrian Reevaluation, Part II

Friday, June 24

• 10:00 - 11:30 The American Presidency: Critical Episodes in Its Growth, Part I
• Noon - 1:00 lunch
• 2:00-3:30 The American Presidency: Critical Episodes in Its Growth, Part II
• 5:00 Pizza party
• 7:00 Movie