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.