Beer, George Louis, 1872-1920

George Louis Beer (July 26, 1872 – March 15, 1920) was a renowned American historian of the "Imperial school". Born in Staten Island, New York, to an affluent family that was prominent in New York's German-Jewish community, Beer studied at Columbia University before teaching there while also working in the tobacco business.

After retiring from business in 1903, he devoted his time to extensive research in British archives, and wrote three highly regarded and influential books on the British-American colonial period. Beer served as colonial expert to President Woodrow Wilson's American Commission of Inquiry during World War I and attended the 1919 Paris Peace Conference as a member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, for which he was chief of the Colonial Division in 1918-1919. He was also a member of the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations and was appointed director of the Mandatory Section of the League's Secretariat in 1919.