Sean Wilentz is the author of Bob Dylan in America (2010) and The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005), for which he won the Bancroft Prize. He is the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University. Wilentz's father and uncle were co-owners of the legendary Eighth Street Bookshop in Greenwich Village, and he grew up in the world that Fred McDarrah captured with his lens. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Steve Fraser is a historian, writer, and editor. He is the author of The Age of Acquiescence, Every Man a Speculator and Wall Street, among other books, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and The Nation. He lives in New York City.