“Gaines maps sweeping cultural history with dazzling virtuosity.” — Entertainment Weekly
James R. Gaines is a longtime journalist, magazine editor, publishing executive, and author. He has been the editor of Time, People, and Life, for which he also served as publisher. His books are eclectic, accessible, and critically acclaimed works of cultural history. His book about Johann Sebastian Bach and Frederick the Great received wonderful reviews on both sides of the Atlantic (John Banville in The Guardian, Martin J. Smith in the Times Literary Supplement, Edmund Morris in The New York Times) as well as from eminent musicologists. His more recent book, George Washington, Lafayette and Their Revolutions, won high praise from Robert Caro, Ron Chernow, Publishers Weekly (starred review), Newsweek and numerous other publications as the first book to cover the close but fraught relationship of the American and French Revolutions and their leaders. His latest book, The Fifties: An Underground History, was praised as an "exciting and enlivening" (Walter Isaacson), "compassionate" (PW), "revelatory" (The Guardian) portrait of "heroic outcasts who shaped America" (The New York Times). He lives in Los Angeles.
