Charles Austin Beard 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, whom he believed to be more motivated by economics than by philosophical principles.
From Wikipedia
“It has been charged that he leaned always on the side of the financial interests against the public as represented in the government; but it must be remembered that at the time the new system went into effect, the public had no credit and financiers were not willing to forego their gains and profits for an abstraction. ... [Hamilton] was swayed throughout the period of the formation of the Constitution by large policies of government -- not by any of the personal interests so often ascribed to him.”
American historian and professor at Columbia University
