RARE "Historian" Charles Beard Hand Signed 3X5 Card COA For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "Historian" Charles Beard Hand Signed 3X5 Card. This item is

certified authentic by Todd Mueller Autographs and comes with their Certificate

of Authenticity. 

ES-2320

Charles Austin Beard (November 27,

1874 – September 1, 1948) was an American historian who wrote primarily during

the first half of the 20th century. For a while, he was a history professor

at Columbia University, but

his influence came from hundreds of monographs, textbooks, and interpretive

studies in both history and political science. His works included a radical

re-evaluation of the Founding

Fathers of the United States, who he believed to be more motivated

by economics than by philosophical principles. Beard's most influential

book, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913),

has been the subject of great controversy ever since its publication. While it

has been frequently criticized for its methodology and conclusions, it was

responsible for a wideranging reinterpretation of American history of the

founding era. He was also the co-author with his wife, Mary Beard, of The Rise of American Civilization (1927),

which had a major influence on American historians. An

icon of the progressive school of historical interpretation, his reputation

suffered during the Cold War when the assumption of economic class conflict was dropped by most historians. The

consensus historian Richard Hofstadter concluded

in 1968, "Today Beard's reputation stands like an imposing ruin in the

landscape of American historiography. What was once the grandest house in the

province is now a ravaged survival." Hofstadter nevertheless praised Beard by saying

he was "foremost among the American historians of his or any generation in

the search for a usable past." Conversely,

Sir Denis Brogan believed

that Beard lost favor in the Cold War not because his views had been proven to

be wrong but because Americans were less willing to hear them. In 1965, Brogan

wrote, "The suggestion that the Constitution had been a successful attempt

to restrain excessive democracy, that it had been a triumph for property (and)

big business seemed blasphemy to many and an act of near treason in the

dangerous crisis through which American political faith and practice were

passing."

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