Lincoln Mitchell

Author Spotlight

Lincoln Mitchell is a writer and professor who grew up in San Francisco and now lives in New York City where he teaches in the political science department at Columbia University. San Francisco Year Zero is his sixth book. Lincoln writes primarily on American politics and foreign policy, baseball and San Francisco, but rarely in the same piece. He has been widely published in American and European journals, newspapers and other media. Lincoln has been a Giants fan since the mid-1970s.

Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter: @LincolnMitchell

Featured Work

San Francisco Year Zero: Political Upheaval, Punk Rock and a Third-Place Baseball Team

San Francisco Year Zero is the story of San Francisco in 1978 and an exploration of how the San Francisco of today, a city of deep contradictions, came into being. San Francisco is now one of the most socially liberal cities in America, but it also has some of the nation’s worst income inequality. It is a playground for tech millionaires, with an outrageously high cost of living, but also supports vibrant alternative and avant-garde scenes. So how did the city get this way?
In San Francisco Year Zero, I trace the roots of the current situation to 1978, when three key events occurred: the assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk occurring fewer than two weeks after the massacre of Peoples Templemembers in Jonestown, Guyana, the explosion of the city’s punk rock scene, and a breakthrough season for the San Francisco Giants. Through these three strands, I explore the rifts between the city’s pro-business and progressive-left politicians, the emergence of Dianne Feinstein as a hugely important political figure, the increasing prominence of the city’s LGBT community, punk’s reinvigoration of the Bay Area’s radical cultural politics, and the ways that the Giants helped unify one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in the nation.
Written from my perspective as a scholar, but also a native San Franciscan who remembers that year well, San Francisco Year Zero seeks to weave together the personal and the political, putting a human face on the social upheavals that transformed a city.
You can purchase your very own copy of San Francisco Year Zero through Green Apple Books.

Featured Fun

Saturday, September 26, 2020 at 12:00PM – (Virtual) Ask an Author Session

Join us for an informal, 30-minute “Ask an Author” Q&A session with Lincoln Mitchell, author of San Francisco Year Zero: Political Upheaval, Punk Rock and a Third-Place Baseball Team. 

Lincoln Mitchell is a writer and professor who grew up in San Francisco and now lives in New York City where he teaches in the political science department at Columbia University. San Francisco Year Zero is his sixth book. Lincoln writes primarily on American politics and foreign policy, baseball and San Francisco, but rarely in the same piece. He has been widely published in American and European journals, newspapers and other media. Lincoln has been a Giants fan since the mid-1970s.

This Event is Free but Pre-Registration is Required.