Hmm - that doesn't sound very pleasant.

Actually, the Beard in question is a person, Charles Beard, and he's dead. Hmm - that doesn't sound very pleasant, either.

But it's fascinating. You see, Beard was a historian who wrote the most important book you've never heard of, "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States," published precisely a century ago, in 1913.

Beard's book has been causing academic fistfights since the day it was published, and that's why we're still talking about it a century later.

Please join historians Woody Holton and Gordon Wood for a rollicking discussion. But restrain yourself. It's just a book.