Happy Birthday Charles A. Beard (1874-1948)

A progressive American historian, who was an early proponent of economic analysis of legal institutions. His 1913 book, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, challenged the orthodox view that the founding fathers were purely publicly-minded individuals, devoid of self-interest. Beard's book, and his radical form of historiography, fell out of favor after the Second World War, in part because of Beard's opposition to US involvement in the war. Nevertheless, his economic approach to understanding the constitution remains influential today, at least among legal scholars. A simple Lexis search indicates  that An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States has been cited in law review articles more than 150 times since 1999.