Richard L. Rapson (born March 8, 1937, in New York) is professor emeritus of American history at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
magna cum laude at Amherst College in June 1958, and served briefly there as an instructor in American Studies.
His dissertation was on The British Traveler in America, 1860–1935; his doctoral advisor was Richard Hofstadter.
He has returned to Stanford as a Visiting Professor of History (1973–74), and been a Visiting Professor of History four separate semesters on Semester at Sea, a University shipboard program that sails around the world.
[2] Co-Authored with Elaine Hatfield Arthur Goodfriend, The Life and Death of New College.