Peter Wood

Background

About Peter Wood

Former tenured professor of anthropology, college provost, and president of 501c3 non-profit, I am best known for two of my books, Diversity: The Invention of a Concept (2003) and 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project (2020). Since 2009 as president of the National Association of Scholars, I have helped to shape the national debate on public issues in American education, including the place of Western Civilization in the curriculum, the cost of college, the influence of China in American schools and colleges, the sustainability movement, the crisis of non-reproducibility in the hard sciences. I have a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Rochester; was a tenured member of the Anthropology Department at Boston University; and provost of The King’s College, NYC. I have published ten books and more than 500 articles in the scholarly and popular press and have given numerous invited lectures. My most original work is in a pair of book titled "A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now" and "Wrath: America Enraged," in which I trace the changes in american culture through the lens of how Americans control their emotional expression. Broadly this is a story of socciety that has shifted from a strong ethic of emotional self-control to a strong ethic of emotional expressivity, both of which play out in how Americans handle their anger. Though I have spent most of my professional career as someone attempting to reform American education against the prevailing tide of progressive values and political advocacy, I am primarily an anthropologist who is fascinated with both human variety and human commonality. I have also been deeply gratified by the attention to my writing, including the numerous short esays I've published in the popular press.