Richard Beeman

Richard Beeman has been on the faculty of the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania for thirty-six years. He is a 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 fifth book, The Varieties of Political Experience in Eighteenth Century America, is a wide-ranging, interpretive study of the uncertain and confused origins of democracy in America. His other books include Patrick Henry: A Biography, The Evolution of the Southern Backcountry, and The Old Dominion and the New Nation, 1788–1801. Beeman has served as chair of the Department of History and as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He also continues to serve as chair of the Program and Exhibits Committee of the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center. He earned his MA from the College of William and Mary, and his PhD from the University of Chicago.