James R. Gaines

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For the African-American-Filipino character actor (born 1955), see James Gaines.

James R. Gaines (born August 11, 1947) is an American journalist, author, and international publishing consultant who is best known as a magazine editor. He was the chief editor of Time, Life, and People magazines between 1987 and 1996 and subsequently the corporate editor of Time Inc. [1]

Gaines is a graduate of the McBurney School in New York City and the University of Michigan. His career in magazine journalism started at the Saturday Review, followed by Newsweek and People, where he was named managing editor in 1987. He was both managing editor and publisher of Life, the first time that one person held both the chief editorial and publishing jobs at a Time-Life magazine. His reinvention of Life as a weekly newsmagazine for the first Persian Gulf War won widespread acclaim and led to his appointment to the editorship of Time, making him the first person ever to run three Time-Life magazines. All three won important journalistic awards during his tenure and undertook important extensions: a television show and books program at People, network specials and custom publishing at Life, and at Time a classroom edition called Time for Kids and Time Online. In his first assignment as a publishing consultant, he founded a brand extension in the men’s luxury category for American Express Publishing titled Travel & Leisure/Golf. Based in Paris, he has since advised publishers in Europe and the Middle East as well as the United States. He has four children, three of which reside with him in Paris.

His books are works of cultural history, including Wit’s End: Days and Nights of the Algonquin Round Table (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977); Evening in the Palace of Reason, which explored the conflict between faith and reason through a fateful meeting between Johann Sebastian Bach and Frederick the Great (HarperCollins, 2005)[2]; and For Liberty and Glory: Washington, Lafayette, and Their Revolutions (W. W. Norton, 2007).[3]

Gaines is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Historical Association, the Society of Eighteenth Century Historians, the Overseas Press Club, and the International Federation of the Periodical Press.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Wit’s End: Days and Nights of the Algonquin Round Table (1977)
  • The Lives of the Piano (1981)
  • Evening in the Palace of Reason (2005)
  • For Liberty and Glory: Washington, Lafayette and Their Revolutions (2007)

[edit] External links

  • The Official Site *[1]
  • A Brief History of Time *[2]
  • Reviews of Evening in the Palace of Reason *[3]
  • Excerpt from For Liberty and Glory *[4]

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983923,00.html Time magazine “To Our Readers” column by Norman Pearlstine, January 8, 1996
  2. ^ http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/history/0,,1385499,00.html John Banning’s review of Evening in the Palace of Reason, The Guardian, January 8, 2005
  3. ^ For Liberty and Glory (Main Page)


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