Kevin Baker
Kevin Baker is an author and journalist whose work frequently covers American history, culture, and sports. His three-part historical fiction trilogy, City of Fire, covers New York in the mid-20th century. Residing in New York City, Baker frequently contributes to The New York Times and Harper's Magazine.
Articles by this Contributor
September 1998
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.
September 1999
When mudslinging in Congress led to actual bloodshed
October 1999
As Hillary Clinton campaigns for a New York Senate seat, she’d do well to study the career of another effective outsider
November 1999
How a mass killing 150 years ago made today’s New York a better place
February/March 2000
Americans won’t choose a President who chides them
April 2000
Reform party movements can be pretty weird in the best of times; imagine what they might have been like in the worst
July/August 2000
Symbol of a brave past or banner of treason? And is there perhaps another Southern standard to be raised?

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Why do we need a national nonprofit membership society for American history?
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“Save America’s Treasures” has been totally eliminated—the largest Federal program supporting preservation of such treasures as the original Star Spangled Banner and George Washington’s tent.
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65% of Americans don’t know what happened at the Constitutional Convention, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
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The “Teaching American History” grants—the largest Federal program supporting history education—have been completely eliminated.
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Visits to the Top 20 Civil War battlefields have dropped in half from 1970 to 2009 according to official National Park Service statistics.
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40% of Americans can’t identify whom we fought in World War II, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
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A quarter of Americans believe Congress shares power over U.S. foreign policy with the United Nations, according to a recent Annenberg survey.
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“There is little that is more important for an American citizen to know than the history and traditions of his country,” John F. Kennedy wrote in American Heritage.
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The “We the People Program,” which touched some 30 million students and 90,000 teachers over 25 years, has been completely eliminated.
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Two-thirds of Americans could not correctly name Yorktown as the last major military action of the American Revolution, according to a recent national Gallup survey.
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The National Heritage Areas and Scenic Byways program, the only major Federal program encouraging visits to historic places, has been completely eliminated in Congressional committee.




