Richard B. Bernstein
Encyclopedia
Richard B. Bernstein (born 24 May 1956 in Flushing, New York) is a constitutional historian
, and a distinguished adjunct professor of law at New York Law School
.
Steven J. Bernstein (1962--). He was educated in the New York City public schools, graduating from Stuyvesant High School
in 1973. He attended Amherst College
, where he was graduated with a B.A. magna cum laude in 1977 in American Studies. While at Amherst, he was a research assistant to Henry Steele Commager
. He was graduated from Harvard Law School
with a J.D. in November 1980.
After three years practicing law, Bernstein left the legal profession to return to the study of history, doing graduate work at New York University
. From 1983 to the present he has been a member of the New York University Legal History Colloquium, and he has been active in the writing of legal and constitutional history and in activities to promote the historical profession.
From 1984 to 1987 he was research curator for the Constitution Bicentennial Project of The New York Public Library
, working with Kym S. Rice under the supervision of Richard B. Morris
, Gouverneur Morris Professor of History Emeritus at Columbia University
. Among the products of this project was Bernstein's first book, Are We to Be a Nation? The Making of the Constitution, published by Harvard University Press
. From 1987 to 1990 Bernstein was historian on the staff of the New York City Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, and from 1989 to 1990 he was research director of the New York State Commission on the Bicentennial of the Constitution.
In the spring of 1988 Bernstein was a visiting part-time lecturer in history at the Newark, New Jersey
campus of Rutgers University
. In 1991, he was named an adjunct assistant professor of law at New York Law School
, where he has taught courses on American legal history and law and literature ever since. In 2007 he was named Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law. In 1997-1998 he also was the Daniel M. Lyons Visiting Professor of History at Brooklyn College
of the City University of New York
.
From 1997 to 2004 Bernstein was co-editor of book reviews for H-LAW, the listserv co-sponsored by H-NET (Humanities and Social Sciences Network On-Line) and the American Society for Legal HIstory. He is also a member of H-LAW's editorial board. For three years he served on the editorial board of Law and Social Inquiry, the journal of the American Bar Foundation
. In 2004 he was elected to the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History for a three-year term (2004-2007); in 2011, he was elected for a second term as a director of the society.
In the fall semester of 2011, Bernstein joined the Skadden, Arps Honors Program in Legal Studies at the City College of New York
as an adjunct professor of political science. In the fall semester, he taught American Constitutional Development; in the spring semester of 2012 he will teach Early American Political Development.
In 1993, Bernstein changed his byline from Richard B. Bernstein to R. B. Bernstein to avoid confusion with the several other Richard Bernsteins active in journalism and law.
In November 2002, in addition to his scholarly activities, Bernstein became director of online operations at Heights Books, Inc., a used-bookstore in Brooklyn. He ended his connection with Heights Books when the business closed at the end of February, 2011.
. Following Are We to Be a Nation?, Bernstein published Amending America: If We Love the Constitution So Much, Why Do We Keep Trying to Change It?, a history of the U.S. Constitution's amending process and the successful and unsuccessful attempts to amend the Constitution from 1789 through the early 1990s; Thomas Jefferson and Bolling v. Bolling: Law and the Legal Profession in Pre-Revolutionary America, coedited with Barbara Wilcie Kern and Bernard Schwartz
(the full text, transcribed with scholarly annotations, of the pleadings and arguments of a complicated 1770 lawsuit about wills and bequests that pitted George Wythe
against Thomas Jefferson
); and Thomas Jefferson, published in 2003. Gordon S. Wood
, reviewing Bernstein's Thomas Jefferson for The New York Times Book Review
, called the book "the best short biography of Jefferson ever written."
Bernstein also co-edited several books with Professor Stephen L. Schechter of Russell Sage College
, including Well Begun: Chronicles of the Early National Period (1989), New York and the Union: Contributions to the American Constitution Experience (1990), New York and the Bicentennial (1990), and Contexts of the Bill of Rights (1990). Roots of the Republic: American Founding Documents Interpreted, coedited with Schechter and Donald S. Lutz of the University of Houston
, also appeared in 1990.
Bernstein's latest book is The Founding Fathers Reconsidered (Oxford University Press, 2009), which on February 19, 2010, was named one of three finalists for the George Washington Book Prize
sponsored by Washington College
in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
and George Washington's Mount Vernon
. His books-in-progress include a concise life of John Adams
modeled on his 2003 biography of Thomas Jefferson; a study of the First Congress as an experiment in government; and an examination of the place of scientific ideas and technological developments in American constitutional history.
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
, and a distinguished adjunct professor of law at New York Law School
New York Law School
New York Law School is a private law school in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. New York Law School is one of the oldest independent law schools in the United States. The school is located within four blocks of all major courts in Manhattan. In 2011, New York Law School...
.
Life
He is the oldest son of Fred Bernstein (1922-2001) and Marilyn [Berman] Bernstein (1927--); his siblings are the artist Linda A. Bernstein (1958-2004) and the engineer, technology specialist, musician, and expert on BMWBMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
Steven J. Bernstein (1962--). He was educated in the New York City public schools, graduating from Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School , commonly referred to as Stuy , is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school opened in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side and moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992. Stuyvesant is noted for its strong academic...
in 1973. He attended Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
, where he was graduated with a B.A. magna cum laude in 1977 in American Studies. While at Amherst, he was a research assistant to Henry Steele Commager
Henry Steele Commager
Henry Steele Commager was an American historian who helped define Modern liberalism in the United States for two generations through his forty books and 700 essays and reviews...
. He was graduated from Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
with a J.D. in November 1980.
After three years practicing law, Bernstein left the legal profession to return to the study of history, doing graduate work at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. From 1983 to the present he has been a member of the New York University Legal History Colloquium, and he has been active in the writing of legal and constitutional history and in activities to promote the historical profession.
From 1984 to 1987 he was research curator for the Constitution Bicentennial Project of The New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
, working with Kym S. Rice under the supervision of Richard B. Morris
Richard B. Morris
Richard Brandon Morris was an American historian best known for his pioneering work in colonial American legal history and the early history of American labor. In later years, he shifted his research interests to the constitutional, diplomatic, and political history of the American Revolution and...
, Gouverneur Morris Professor of History Emeritus at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. Among the products of this project was Bernstein's first book, Are We to Be a Nation? The Making of the Constitution, published by Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
. From 1987 to 1990 Bernstein was historian on the staff of the New York City Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, and from 1989 to 1990 he was research director of the New York State Commission on the Bicentennial of the Constitution.
In the spring of 1988 Bernstein was a visiting part-time lecturer in history at the Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
campus of Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
. In 1991, he was named an adjunct assistant professor of law at New York Law School
New York Law School
New York Law School is a private law school in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. New York Law School is one of the oldest independent law schools in the United States. The school is located within four blocks of all major courts in Manhattan. In 2011, New York Law School...
, where he has taught courses on American legal history and law and literature ever since. In 2007 he was named Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law. In 1997-1998 he also was the Daniel M. Lyons Visiting Professor of History at Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
of the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
.
From 1997 to 2004 Bernstein was co-editor of book reviews for H-LAW, the listserv co-sponsored by H-NET (Humanities and Social Sciences Network On-Line) and the American Society for Legal HIstory. He is also a member of H-LAW's editorial board. For three years he served on the editorial board of Law and Social Inquiry, the journal of the American Bar Foundation
American Bar Foundation
Established in 1952, the ' is an independent, nonprofit national research institute located in Chicago, Illinois committed to objective empirical research on law and legal institutions...
. In 2004 he was elected to the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History for a three-year term (2004-2007); in 2011, he was elected for a second term as a director of the society.
In the fall semester of 2011, Bernstein joined the Skadden, Arps Honors Program in Legal Studies at the City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
as an adjunct professor of political science. In the fall semester, he taught American Constitutional Development; in the spring semester of 2012 he will teach Early American Political Development.
In 1993, Bernstein changed his byline from Richard B. Bernstein to R. B. Bernstein to avoid confusion with the several other Richard Bernsteins active in journalism and law.
In November 2002, in addition to his scholarly activities, Bernstein became director of online operations at Heights Books, Inc., a used-bookstore in Brooklyn. He ended his connection with Heights Books when the business closed at the end of February, 2011.
Scholarship
Among the products of the New York Public Library's Constitution Bicentennial Project was Bernstein's first book, Are We to Be a Nation? The Making of the Constitution, published by Harvard University PressHarvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
. Following Are We to Be a Nation?, Bernstein published Amending America: If We Love the Constitution So Much, Why Do We Keep Trying to Change It?, a history of the U.S. Constitution's amending process and the successful and unsuccessful attempts to amend the Constitution from 1789 through the early 1990s; Thomas Jefferson and Bolling v. Bolling: Law and the Legal Profession in Pre-Revolutionary America, coedited with Barbara Wilcie Kern and Bernard Schwartz
Bernard Schwartz
Bernard Schwartz may refer to:* Bernard Schwartz, birth name of Tony Curtis , American film actor* Bernard L. Schwartz , CEO of Loral Space & Communications...
(the full text, transcribed with scholarly annotations, of the pleadings and arguments of a complicated 1770 lawsuit about wills and bequests that pitted George Wythe
George Wythe
George Wythe was an American lawyer, a judge, a prominent law professor and "Virginia's foremost classical scholar." He was a teacher and mentor of Thomas Jefferson. Wythe's signature is positioned at the head of the list of seven Virginia signatories on the United States Declaration of Independence...
against Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
); and Thomas Jefferson, published in 2003. Gordon S. Wood
Gordon S. Wood
Gordon S. Wood is Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University and the recipient of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History for The Radicalism of the American Revolution. His book The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 won a 1970 Bancroft Prize...
, reviewing Bernstein's Thomas Jefferson for The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
, called the book "the best short biography of Jefferson ever written."
Bernstein also co-edited several books with Professor Stephen L. Schechter of Russell Sage College
Russell Sage College
Russell Sage College is a women's college located in Troy, New York, approximately north of New York City in the Capital District. It is one of the three colleges that make up The Sage Colleges...
, including Well Begun: Chronicles of the Early National Period (1989), New York and the Union: Contributions to the American Constitution Experience (1990), New York and the Bicentennial (1990), and Contexts of the Bill of Rights (1990). Roots of the Republic: American Founding Documents Interpreted, coedited with Schechter and Donald S. Lutz of the University of Houston
University of Houston
The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
, also appeared in 1990.
Bernstein's latest book is The Founding Fathers Reconsidered (Oxford University Press, 2009), which on February 19, 2010, was named one of three finalists for the George Washington Book Prize
George Washington Book Prize
The George Washington Book Prize was instituted in 2005 and is awarded annually to the best book on America's founding era, especially those that have the potential to advance broad public understanding of American history. It is administered by Washington College’s C.V...
sponsored by Washington College
Washington College
Washington College is a private, independent liberal arts college located on a campus in Chestertown, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore. Maryland granted Washington College its charter in 1782...
in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, founded in New York by Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman in 1994, was set up to promote the study and love of American history.The Institute serves teachers, students, scholars, and the general public...
and George Washington's Mount Vernon
Mount Vernon
The name Mount Vernon is a dedication to the English Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon. It was first applied to Mount Vernon, the Virginia estate of George Washington, the first President of the United States...
. His books-in-progress include a concise life of John Adams
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
modeled on his 2003 biography of Thomas Jefferson; a study of the First Congress as an experiment in government; and an examination of the place of scientific ideas and technological developments in American constitutional history.
External links
- "R.B. Bernstein and Rush Limbaugh", The Faculty Lounge, March 26, 2009