Skip to main content

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

It’s always been the Republicans
The Quietest War, October 2006 | Vol. 57, No. 5
We’ve kept Fallujah, but have we lost our souls?
Why Have Our Presidents Almost Always Stumbled After Their First Four Years?
Why Prisoners Shouldn’t Pay Their Way
Can the disasters that befell other cities help save this one?
Discovering what a particular time in Harlem says about the whole nation
What history says about the new split in the AFl-CIO
What do all these baby boomers really have in common?
Are we learning from the past? And are we honoring it?
Defending a Recent Victim of Presidential Politics
…And Why You Almost Never Feel Them Coming
President, October 2004 | Vol. 55, No. 5
Why do they usually avoid holding conventions in New York?
Copy Wrong, June/July 2004 | Vol. 55, No. 3
Internet Piracy and Dickens and Melville
When does a single gaffe sink a campaign?
How should a President honor the war dead?
Photograph, October 2003 | Vol. 54, No. 5
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WE DELIVERED THE PHILIPPINES FROM TYRANNY A CENTURY AGO
Historically it has had real virtues
…And The Real Secret In Strom Thurmond’s Past
Violent City, March 2003 | Vol. 54, No. 1
A Five-day Battle for New York Reveals the Birthing Pains of Our Democracy
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SET ASIDE THE CONSTITUTION?
DID AMERICANS BEHAVE BETTER BACK THEN?
LINDH WAS HARDLY THE FIRST
THE TROUBLE WITH MILITARY TRIBUNALS
OUR FIRST FIGHT AGAINST INTERNATIONAL TERRORISTS
WE’VE SEEN IT (ALMOST) ALL BEFORE
Martin Scorsese has drawn on his own youth and his feelings about the past—and has rebuilt 1860s New York—to make a movie about the fight for American democracy. Here he tells why it is both so hard and so necessary to get history on film.

"WEB ONLY STORIES" BY THIS CONTRIBUTOR

… 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…
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…
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.…
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,…
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…