Baker was born in Englewood, New Jersey,"Kevin (Breen) Baker." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Retrieved via Biography in Context database 2016-06-19. and grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts.Shafner, Rhonda (December 29, 2002). "At Home with History: Books Have Long Taken Writer Kevin Baker into the Past." Reading Eagle (Reading, Pa.). Retrieved via Google News 2016-06-19."Kevin Baker – About." Kevin Baker [author's website]. kevinbaker.info. Retrieved 2016-06-19. As a youth, he worked on the local newspaper Gloucester Daily Times, covering school-boy sports, as well as town meetings and other civic affairs. He graduated from Columbia University in 1980, with a major in political science.
