Robert Hessen

Robert Hessen, Ph.D., is an American economic and business historian, a widely published author, a professor in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Among the books he has authored or edited are "Steel Titan: The Life of Charles M. Schwab", "In Defense of the Corporation" and the multi-volume series "Hoover Archival Documentaries". He has featured shorter works in such diverse publications as "The New York Times", "Barron's", "Business History Review", "Labor History", "The Hastings Law Journal" and the "Journal of Law and Economics". His essays defending capitalism and presenting a private-property-and-contractual model of corporations were published in the "Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics" (David R. Henderson, editor). He was associated with philosopher Ayn Rand for 25 years and contributed articles to two of her periodicals.

History

Born in New York City, Hessen attended Queens College as an undergraduate, Harvard University to obtain his M.A. and Columbia University to obtain his Ph.D. Prior to joining the Hoover Institution and taking his current position at Stanford, he taught in the Graduate School of Business at Columbia.