James R. Gaines (born August 11, 1947) is a journalist and historian, the author of several books and the former managing editor of Time, Life, and People magazines. Between 2011 and 2015 he was at

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was esta ...

in various capacities: as global editor-at-large, as editor in charge of the Americas, as editor in charge of global photography and as global editor for ethics and standards. He spent most of his career at Time Inc., where he began as a writer at People magazine and left twenty years later as corporate editor of

Time Inc. Time Inc. was an American worldwide mass media corporation founded on November 28, 1922, by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden and based in New York City. It owned and published over 100 magazine brands, including its namesake ''Time'', ''Sports Illu ...

Between Time Inc. and Reuters, he was a consultant on magazine startups, acquisitions and digital initiatives for publishers including Conde Nast International and American Express Publishing. In 2007 he became the editor-in-chief of FLYP, a biweekly multimedia publication online that produced interactive material for the web sites of ''Fortune,

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

'' and

ProPublica ProPublica (), legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit organization based in New York City. In 2010, it became the first online news source to win a Pulitzer Prize, for a piece written by one of its journalists''The Guardian'', April 13, 2010P ...

. He also served as managing editor of '' The Daily'', News Corp’s “newspaper” for tablets. He is the author of ''For Liberty and Glory: Washington, Lafayette and Their Revolutions'' (W. W. Norton, 2007); ''Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment'' (HarperCollins, 2005); and ''Wit’s End: Days and Nights of the Algonquin Round Table'' (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977). Gaines began his career at '' Saturday Review'', before moving on to ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

'', where he was a National Affairs writer. A graduate of the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, Gaines is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

, the

American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies The American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) is an academic society for humanities research related to the "long" eighteenth century, from the later seventeenth through the early nineteenth centuries. ASECS was established in 1969, ...

, the

Overseas Press Club The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member, as was the war correspondent Peggy Hull. The club seeks to maintain ...

, and the

Online News Association The Online News Association (ONA), founded in 1999, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Washington D.C., United States. It is the world's largest association of digital journalists, with more than 2,000 members. The majority of ON ...

Bibliography

*''Wit’s End: Days and Nights of the Algonquin Round Table'' (1977) *''The Lives of the Piano'' (1981) editor *''Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment'' (2005) *''For Liberty and Glory: Washington, Lafayette and Their Revolutions'' (2007)

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaines, James R. 1947 births Living people 21st-century American historians American male non-fiction writers American male journalists American magazine editors Place of birth missing (living people) University of Michigan alumni 21st-century American male writers