Richard Beeman
Professor of History
Dr. Richard R. Beeman has been on the faculty of the Department of History at Penn for forty-one years. He is an historian of the American Revolutionary Era, and has written six books and several dozen articles on aspects of America 's political and constitutional history in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His most recent book, Plain Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution is the most comprehensive account of the Constitutional Convention to appear in the past half century; it will be released by Random House in March, 2009. The book takes readers behind the scenes and beyond the debate to show how the world's most enduring constitution was forged through conflict, compromise, and, eventually, fragile consensus.
Professor Beeman has served as Chair of the Department of History, Associate Dean in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences responsible for the School's humanities and social sciences departments, and as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center and is Chair of the Constitution Center 's Committee on Programs, Exhibits, and Education.
Professor Beeman's teaching activities at Penn have ranged over numerous topics dealing with the History of the United States from the founding of the colonies up to the Civil War. His current teaching interests center on the period of the American Revolution and Constitution and on the history of the American presidency and American presidential elections.
Dr. Beeman has received numerous awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton , and the Huntington Library. He has served as a Fulbright Professor in the United Kingdom and as Vyvian Harmsworth Distinguished Professor of American History at Oxford University.
For further information about the work of Professor Beeman, as well as information regarding his public speaking availability, please visit his personal website.
B.A.: University of California , Berkeley , 1964
M.A.: College of William and Mary, 1965
Ph.D.: University of Chicago (History), 1968
Curriculum Vitae
