<< Re JKS's: "Yeah, but the scholarship of the book is pretty thorough
discredited. Forrest
MacDonald, a conservative but a good historian, pretty much demolsihed
it in a
book called We the People back in the 50s."
Specifics, please! How did MacDonald "pretty much demolish" Beard?
>> It's been a long time since I read the book. I just remember being impressed at the time with what I recall to be an impressive attack on Beard's claims to have linked the framer's specific positions with their particular economic interests. I'm no US history expert, but it's my understanding that Beard is regarded these days as someone who serveda usefulk role in drawing people' attention to economic analysis, but whose own analysis is not to be relied upon for serious scholarly purposes. In addition I myself have doubts of a more general kind about primitive economic determinism. But as I said, I think that an economic analysi of the Constitution is at least part of the story, but it has to be done right, and I doubt that Beard did it in a relliable way by contemporary standards,
--jks