Richard P. Madsen was educated at Maryknoll College (A.B., Dept. of Philosophy), Maryknoll Seminary (B.D., 1967, M.Th., 1968), Fujen University, Chinese Language Institute in Hsinchu, Taiwan (1968-1970), National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan (Dept. of Sociology, 1970-71), and Harvard University, East Asia (M.A., Regional Studies, 1972, Ph.D., Dept. of Sociology, 1977). He is currently a professor at the University of California at San Diego in La Jolla, California, and has been since 1985. From 1984 until 1987, Madsen was Chair of the Program in Chinese Studies at UCSD, and from 1983 to 1985 he served as an associate professor.

Madsen has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Edward Hume Memorial Lecture at Yale University in 1995, a Jury Nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in General Non-fiction for Habits of the Heart in 1986, the C. Wright Mills Award for Morality and Power in a Chinese Village in 1985, and the L.A. Times Book Award for best book in the category of "current interest" for Habits of the Heart in 1985. He has published numerous books and articles, including China and the American Dream: A Moral Inquiry (1995), The Good Society (with Robert Bellah, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven Tipton, 1991), Unofficial China: Popular Thought and Culture in the People’s Republic (co-edited with Perry Link and Paul Pickowicz, 1989), Individualism and Commitment in American Life: Habits of the Heart Reader (co-edited with Robert Bellah, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven Tipton, 1987), Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (with Robert Bellah, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven Tipton, 1985), Morality and Power in a Chinese Village (1984), and Chen Village (with Anita Chan and Jonathan Unger, 1984).