Erik Baker

Erik Baker

@erikmbaker.bsky.social

Historian at Harvard, senior editor at The Drift, author of Make Your Own Job erikmbaker.com

4,500 Followers 359 Following 464 Posts Joined May 2023
10 hours ago
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Are the Greens for real? A dispatch on UK politics by Oliver Eagleton

Today in the newsletter, a sharp dispatch from across the pond by Oliver Eagleton on the prospects of the electoral left in the UK newsletter.thedriftmag.com/p/are-the-gr...

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1 day ago

Same

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3 days ago
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Questions for The Drift Advice Columnist Hello! I'm Sophie Haigney, and I recently started writing an advice column for The Drift. You can read my first two columns here, and here. If you want to ask a question anonymously, you can submit it...

You can now submit questions for our new advice column anonymously through this form! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

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3 days ago
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Bad for people, great for fiction A Q&A with Andrew Martin

“I feel excited about the possibilities presented by the feeling that there isn’t much left to lose,” says “Down Time” author Andrew Martin in conversation with Drift co-editor Rebecca Panovka.

newsletter.thedriftmag.com/p/bad-for-pe...

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3 days ago
rfk standing very normally in a steak and shake

leland palmer in the black lodge

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1 week ago
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We are launching our first-ever internship program this summer! Visit our website for more details. Applications are due by April 10. bit.ly/4aXdZQw

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2 weeks ago

Thanks to @thedriftmag.com and @erikmbaker.bsky.social for spreading the word about Cold War Liberalism edited by @mbrenes.bsky.social and @dbessner.bsky.social -- a volume that is sure to provoke much discussion. Available now in paperback from @universitypress.cambridge.org

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2 weeks ago
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Where will I be happy? The Drift's advice column #2

The February installment of Sophie Haigney’s advice column addresses the question of where to live, and why committing is easier said than done.

newsletter.thedriftmag.com/p/where-will...

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2 weeks ago
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Thrilled to have these stories by @samuelmjensen.bsky.social, Nick Foretek, and Elisa Gonzalez recognized by the National Magazine Awards!

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2 weeks ago

Soooooo proud of this recognition - what amazing company. I'm so happy that this will draw attention to these amazing stories!

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2 weeks ago
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Where will I be happy? The Drift's advice column #2

Latest installment of Sophie’s new advice column, on moving and optionality newsletter.thedriftmag.com/p/where-will...

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2 weeks ago
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I have the privilege of joining my friend Mac Loftin for this event tomorrow! If you're in the area and interested in the best theology book of the year and/or how to effectively challenge Christofascism, please join us.

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2 weeks ago
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I have the privilege of joining my friend Mac Loftin for this event tomorrow! If you're in the area and interested in the best theology book of the year and/or how to effectively challenge Christofascism, please join us.

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2 weeks ago

This is 400,000 internal refugees in the united states because of state level policies and there remains fear that the federal government could make it worse.

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2 weeks ago
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"You might as well call yourself a warlock" A Q&A with Daniel Poppick

“I realized that I could treat the novel as a form, like any poem,” Drift contributor Daniel Poppick says in a Q&A on his new book “The Copywriter.”

newsletter.thedriftmag.com/p/you-might-...

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2 weeks ago

Let me know how it goes!

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2 weeks ago

Hey, @erikmbaker.bsky.social, your turn's tonight!

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3 weeks ago
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I like sports headlines that could also be summaries of medieval chivalric romance

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3 weeks ago
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Get your copy to read my piece!

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3 weeks ago
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The founding ideology of American empire Daniel Bessner and Erik Baker on Cold War liberalism and its afterlives

Today in the newsletter, Drift senior editor @erikmbaker.bsky.social and contributor Daniel Bessner talk about a new book on Cold War liberalism to which they both contributed.

newsletter.thedriftmag.com/p/the-foundi...

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3 weeks ago
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The founding ideology of American empire Daniel Bessner and Erik Baker on Cold War liberalism and its afterlives

Today in the newsletter: @dbessner.bsky.social and I chat about the book on Cold War liberalism that he co-edited with @mbrenes.bsky.social and to which I contributed, which is out in paperback today newsletter.thedriftmag.com/p/the-foundi...

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3 weeks ago
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On 3/10 at 7:30 at The Bell House, our Editors Kiara Barrow and Rebecca Panovka will moderate a conversation with Brace Belden (of TrueAnon), @drboguslaw.bsky.social, @azbrodsky.bsky.social, and @anandwrites.bsky.social on the Epstein files. Get tickets today:
www.ticketmaster.com/event/300064...

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3 weeks ago

Mac Forehand, with a name like that you really should be playing baseball

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3 weeks ago

I've taught The Social Network before as a cynical post-industrial Arrowsmith. Ma nuit chez Maud is what comes to mind first for "cinematic novel of ideas."

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3 weeks ago

Directed by Cronenberg lmao it's a must-see

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1 month ago

Thanks so much for including!

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1 month ago
A stack of books on a desk. The books are as follows, by week they we read them. 

Week 2:

Ball, Blake Scott. Charlie Brown’s America: The Popular Politics of Peanuts. Oxford University Press, 2021.

Week 3:

Stein, Judith. Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies. Yale University Press, 2011.

Week 4:

Ansfield, Bench. Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City. Norton, 2025.

Week 5:

McKevitt, Andrew C. Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. North Carolina University Press, 2023.

Week 6:

Baker, Erik. Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America. Harvard University Press, 2025.

Week 7:

Chatelain, Marcia. Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. Norton, 2021.

Week 8:

Shepherd, Laura Lassabe. Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America. University of North Carolina Press, 2023.

Week 9:

Brownell, Kathryn Cramer. 24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News. Princeton University Press, 2023.

Week 10:

Black, Liza. Picturing Indians: Native Americans in Film, 1941–1960. University of Nebraska Press, 2020.

Week 11:

Goodman, Carly. Dreamland: America's Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction. University of North Carolina Press, 2023.

Week 12:

Jones, Howard. My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness. Oxford, 2017.

Week 13:

Kamensky, Jane. Candida Royalle and the Sexual Revolution: A History from Below. Norton, 2024.

Week 14:

Renfro, Paul M. The Life and Death of Ryan White: AIDS and Inequality in America. University of North Carolina Press.

Week 15:

Colby, Jason M. Orca: How We Came to Know and Love the Ocean's Greatest Predator. Oxford University Press, 2018.

My graduate readings this semester, minus Brownell's 24/7 Politics (Princeton has a silly desk copy system that I had a tough time navigating but enroute now). The course is recent US history.

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The paperback is apparently already available for pre-order! www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Ow...

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1 month ago
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Jeffrey Epstein, litterateur On his reading and its uses

“Much has been said about literature’s capacity to improve our moral sensibilities,” writes Julia Kornberg, but Jeffrey Epstein’s reading habits say more about literature’s ability to “justify our corruption.”

newsletter.thedriftmag.com/p/jeffrey-ep...

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