Kim Phillips-Fein

Phillips-Fein published her second book titled Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics in 2017. The book "explores the causes, effects, and the legacy of New York City’s fiscal crisis of 1975". Fear City was named a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History and she received a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Upon earning her PhD, Phillips-Fein joined the faculty at New York University (NYU) and became a 2008–09 NYU Center for the Humanities Fellow. With the assistance of this fellowship, she published her first book titled Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal. The book was a comprehensive historical account of how high-powered individuals fought against the New Deal from WWII to Ronald Reagan's presidential election. Following this publication, she received a Cullman Center for Scholars, Artists and Writers fellowship at the New York Public Library for the 2014–15 academic year to pen her second book.

Kimberly Phillips-Fein (born August 1975) is an American historian. She is also a Full professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study and the History Department of the College of Arts and Science at New York University (NYU). Her book Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics was named a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Phillips-Fein was born in New York City in August 1975 and was raised in downtown Brooklyn. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of Chicago in 1997 before enrolling at Columbia University for her PhD.