• The American Revelation

    Ten Ideals That Shaped Our Country from the Puritans to the Cold War

    I am pleased to announce that my new book, THE AMERICAN REVELATION: TEN IDEALS THAT SHAPED OUR COUNTRY FROM THE PURITANS TO THE COLD WAR, has been published by St. Martin's Press.

  • Henry Ford and the Jews

    The Mass Production of Hate

    A visitor to Nazi Party headquarters in Munich in the winter of 1922 would have immediately observed a large table covered with copies of the German edition of The International Jew by Henry Ford, and a framed photograph of the industrialist-author hanging on Adolf Hitler's office wall. In Henry Ford and the Jews, biographer Neil Baldwin reveals the complex tale of how "Heinrich" Ford promoted a virulent brand of antisemitism, disseminating his point of view through a privately-published newspaper, The Dearborn Independent -- and how the Jewish American community responded with alarm and courage.

  • Edison

    Inventing the Century

    The genius of America's most prolific inventor, Thomas Edison, is widely acknowledged, and Edison himself has become an almost mythic figure. But how much do we really know about the man who considered deriving rubber from a goldenrod plant as opposed to the mastermind who gave us electric light?

  • Man Ray

    American Artist

    Man Ray is the quintessential modernist figure - painter, sculptor, photographer, filmmaker, poet, and philosopher. One of the most fascinating of the Surrealists who transformed the Paris art world during the 1920s, Man Ray was an enigma - a Dadist who revered the Old Masters, an anarchist pursued by wealthy patrons.

  • To All Gentleness: William Carlos Williams

    The Doctor Poet

    It all began with the first National Book Awards Ceremony in New York City at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in the spring of 1950. William Carlos Willliams (1883-1963) was the Poetry Winner that year. He also happens to have been the subject of my doctoral dissertation as well as of the first biography I ever wrote, To All Gentleness: William Carlos Williams, The Doctor-Poet (Atheneum, 1984, now available in paperback from INPRINT EDITIONS.

  • Legends of the Plumed Serpent

    Biography of a Mexican God

    Few images hold an active claim on the imaginations of countless generations, but the Plumed Serpent, or Quetzalcoatl, has endured through 5,000 years of Mesoamerican history. Visualized as part bird and part snake and also in human form, this benevolent god remained a potent symbol of creation from the time of the ancient Olmec to the Mexican revolution. When Hernán Cortes arrived in his "New Spain" in 1519, the Aztec believed he might embody the Plumed Serpent.

  • Man Ray DVD

    Prophet of the Avant-Garde

    As part of the PBS American Masters series, Man Ray: Prophet of the Avant-Garde covers the life and artwork of this innovative modern artist with both clips of interviews and archival footage of the times he lived in. Born in Brooklyn as Emanuel Radnitsky, he grew discouraged by the New York art world of the early 1900s, changed his name to Man Ray, and moved to Paris. He was embraced by the Dadaists, many of whom later became Surrealists.