Charles Beard and the Politics of Radical Public History

This article is part of a "Centennial Symposium on Charles Beard's Economic Interpretation," edited by Max Edling. It assesses Beard's philosophy of history in relation both to politics and scholarship of his own time, and to our own. Situating Beard's thought alongside that of Carl Becker, Gordon Wood, and Jill Lepore, the article argues that Beard took a radical approach to public history which placed public, political intervention at the centre of his scholarly activity.