Robert M. Whaples is Co-Editor and Managing Editor for The Independent Review, Professor and Chair of Department of Economics at Wake Forest University, Director and Book Review Editor for EH.NET, and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Center on Culture and Civil Society at the Independent Institute. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Whaples is the recipient of both the Allen Nevins Prize and Jonathan Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching Economic History from the Economic History Association. He is the editor of the books, Historical Perspectives on the American Economy (with Dianne Betts, 1995), Public Choice Interpretations of American Economic History (with Jac Heckelman and John Moorhouse, 1999), The Routledge Handbook of Modern Economic History and The Routledge Handbook of Major Events in Economic History (both with Randall Parker, 2012), and The Economic Crisis in Retrospect: Explanations by Great Economists (with Page West, forthcoming), and he is editor of EH.Net's Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History.