Kevin Baker

Kevin Baker is an author and journalist whose work frequently covers American history, culture, and sports. His three-part, “City of Fire” historical fiction trilogy—Paradise Alley, Dreamland, and Strivers Row—covers New York from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, and his latest novel, The Big Crowd, is set in the city just after World War II. He is also the author of the history, America, The Story of Us. Residing in New York City, Baker is a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine, and writes frequently for The New York Times and other periodicals. He is a member of the board of the Society of American Historians.

Articles by this Author

The Long Struggle By Baseball Players , September 2001 | Vol. 52, No. 6

WHY BASEBALL DOESN’T PLAY BY THE RULES OF BUSINESS

Mayor, September 2001 | Vol. 52, No. 6

Funny Business, July/August 2001 | Vol. 52, No. 5

THE CRUSADE AGAINST COMIC BOOKS

Fdr: Not Guilty I Don’t Buy It, July/August 2001 | Vol. 52, No. 5

Religious Education, May 2001 | Vol. 52, No. 3

CONFRONTING AN ISSUE AS OLD AS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Another Day of Infamy, April 2001 | Vol. 52, No. 2

CONGRESS IS TRYING TO LEGISLATE THE HISTORY OF WHAT HAPPENED ON THE EVE OF PEARL HARBOR.

Getting a Life, February/March 2001 | Vol. 52, No. 1

WHAT’S AN EX-PRESIDENT TO DO?

The Parallels Between Clinton and Coolidge, December 2000 | Vol. 51, No. 8

WHICH PRESIDENT WILL HISTORY COMPARE HIM MOST CLOSELY TO?

Did Baltimore Firemen Kill Edgar Allan Poe?, November 2000 | Vol. 51, No. 7

Old-style politics and the death of Edgar Allan Poe

What Happened to Hubert H. Humphrey?, October 2000 | Vol. 51, No. 6

The miseries of the vice president who goes after his boss’s job

Anti-Catholicism in the USA, September 2000 | Vol. 51, No. 5

A look at one of America’s most resilient prejudices

Alternatives to That Odious Flag?, July/August 2000 | Vol. 51, No. 4

Is it a symbol of a brave past or a banner of treason? And is there perhaps another Southern standard to be raised?

Political Speech, May/June 2000 | Vol. 51, No. 3

The Temper Thing, May/June 2000 | Vol. 51, No. 3

How bad is it when presidents get really sore?

Howard Scott and His Technocratic Utopia, April 2000 | Vol. 51, No. 2

Reform-party movements can be pretty weird in the best of times; imagine what they might have been like in the worst.

How to Lose the Next Election, February/March 2000 | Vol. 51, No. 1

Americans won’t choose a president who chides them.

The Astor Place Riot in 1849 Was Much Worse than Columbine, November 1999 | Vol. 50, No. 7

How a mass killing 150 years ago made today’s New York a better place

Carpetbagger RFK Runs for Senator of New York, October 1999 | Vol. 50, No. 6

As Hillary Clinton campaigns for a New York Senate seat, she’d do well to study the career of another effective outsider.

Caning Senator Sumner Nearly to Death in the Senate, September 1999 | Vol. 50, No. 5

When mudslinging in Congress led to actual bloodshed

Event In This Century, May/June 1999 | Vol. 50, No. 3

An Interview with the Author of "The American Century", September 1998 | Vol. 49, No. 5

The English journalist has spent more than a decade preparing a book on this country’s role in the most eventful hundred years since the race began. He liked what he found enough to become an American himself.

"WEB ONLY STORIES" BY THIS CONTRIBUTOR

The Winds of Political Change

… And Why You Almost Never Feel Them Coming The Democratic candidate was crushed. An urban, ethnic liberal from the Northeast, he had been caught flatfooted by the waves of vitriolic attacks that smeared his background, his years of dedicated public service, the character of his beloved wife, as…

Helluva Town

Why do they usually avoid holding conventions in New York? This summer marks a sea change in the traditions of American party politics. For the first time the Democratic National Convention will be held in Boston, and the Republican National Convention will be held in that great Babylon, that hole…

Copy Wrong

Internet Piracy and Dickens and Melville “Yes, I read the illegal translation,” a Czech Internet correspondent known as “Hustey” wrote last summer, when the next, eagerly awaited book in J. K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series—Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix—first appeared in bookstores.…

The Shriek Heard Around The World

When does a single gaffe ruin a campaign? Probably every American with access to a television, a radio, or a computer has heard the notorious howl with which Howard Dean ended his concession speech after the Democratic caucuses in Iowa. Dr. Dean’s weird outburst was immediately labeled a gaffe,…

"Your Brave and Early Fallen Child..."

How should a President honor war dead? Since the beginning of the war in Iraq last year a small tempest has arisen in the media over whether or not George W. Bush should attend the funerals of American servicemen and women killed in the line of duty. As of this writing, Mr. Bush has not done so, a…

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