Kevin McAleer was born in Santa Monica, California, received his doctorate in history from U. C. San Diego, and now lives as a writer and translator in Berlin. Notable among his books are the epic poem ERROL FLYNN: AN EPIC LIFE (PalmArtPress 2018), which eminent film critic Rex Reed praised as "a daring adventure in biographical refurbishment," and the historical monograph DUELING: THE CULT OF HONOR IN FIN-DE-SIÈCLE GERMANY (Princeton Legacy Library 2014), a social portrait of duelists in Imperial Germany which The Wall Street Journal commended as "vivid and appalling" and the Encyclopaedia Britannica acclaimed one of its "Books of the Year."