Ward, Geoffrey C. 1940–

(Geoffrey Champion Ward)

PERSONAL:

Born November 30, 1940, in Newark, OH; son of Frederick Champion (an educator) and Duira Rachel Ward; married Phyllis Kidder, 1963 (divorced); married Diane Raines Keim (a writer), November 26, 1983; children: Nathan, Kelly, Garrett (stepchild). Education: Oberlin College, B.A., 1962.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY.

CAREER:

Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Chicago, IL, senior picture editor, 1964-68, ran picture-gathering office in New York, NY, 1969-70; Reader's Digest, New York, NY, art director and writer in General Books Division, 1968-69; freelance writer, 1973-75 and 1982—; American Heritage, New York, NY, managing editor, 1976-77, editor, 1977-82, columnist, 1983-94. Cofounder of Contemporary Photographer; cofounder and editor of Audience, 1970-73; research director and writer for the Lincoln Sites Project, 1975-76. Author of scripts and books and creative consultant for television specials.

MEMBER:

Society of American Historians, Writers Guild, Century Association, Serengeti Club.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Christopher Award, 1987, for The Statue of Liberty, and 1991, for The Civil War; National Book Critics Circle award, 1989, Francis Parkman Prize, Society of American Historians, 1990, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography, 1990, all for A First-class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt; Humanitas Prize (with Ric Burns and Ken Burns), 1991, and Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Informational Programming (with Ric Burns and Ken Burns), 1991, both for The Civil War; Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series (with Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and John Chancellor), 1995, for Baseball; Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Series (with Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Keith David), 2001, for Jazz; Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming, 2005, and Writers Guild of America Award for documentary, 2006, both for Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson; Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, 2005, and William Hill Sports Book of the Year, 2006, both for Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.

WRITINGS:

FILM AND TELEVISION SCRIPTS

(With Bernard A. Weisberger) The Statue of Liberty, broadcast on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), 1985.

(With Ken Burns) Huey Long, RKB, 1985, broadcast on PBS, 1986.

Thomas Hart Benton, broadcast on PBS, 1989.

(With others) Nixon, broadcast on PBS, 1990.

Lindbergh, broadcast on PBS, 1990.

(With Ken Burns and Ric Burns) The Civil War, broadcast on PBS, 1990.

(With Robert S. Levi) Duke Ellington: Reminiscing in Tempo, broadcast on PBS, 1991.

(With others) The Kennedys, broadcast on PBS, 1992.

Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, broadcast on PBS, 1992.

George Marshall and the American Century, broadcast on PBS, 1993.

(With Ken Burns) Baseball, broadcast on PBS, 1994.

Daley: The Last Boss, broadcast on PBS, 1995.

(With Dayton Duncan) The West, broadcast on PBS, 1996.

Theodore Roosevelt, broadcast on PBS, 1996.

Thomas Jefferson, broadcast on PBS, 1997.

Frank Lloyd Wright, broadcast on PBS, 1998.

Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, broadcast on PBS, 1999.

(With Dayton Duncan) Jazz, broadcast on PBS, 2001.

(With Dayton Duncan) Mark Twain, broadcast on PBS, 2002.

Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, broadcast on PBS, 2004.

(With Ken Burns) The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945, broadcast on PBS, 2007.

NONFICTION

Lincoln's Thought and the Present (series of pamphlets), [Springfield, IL], 1978.

Treasures of the Maharajahs ("Treasures of the World" series), Stonehenge (Chicago, IL), 1983.

Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882-1905, Harper (New York, NY), 1985.

A First-class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt, Harper (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Ken Burns and Ric Burns) The Civil War: An Illustrated History (companion to the documentary), Knopf (New York, NY), 1990.

American Originals: The Private Worlds of Some Singular Men and Women, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1991.

(With Diane Raines Ward) Tiger Wallahs: Encounters with the Men Who Tried to Save the Greatest of the Great Cats, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1993.

Baseball: An Illustrated History (companion to the documentary), Knopf (New York, NY), 1994.

(With Ken Burns and Jim O'Connor) Shadow Ball: The History of the Negro Leagues, Knopf (New York, NY), 1994.

(Editor) Closest Companion: The Unknown Story of the Intimate Friendship between Franklin Roosevelt and Margaret Suckley, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1995.

The West: An Illustrated History (companion to the documentary), Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1996.

(Editor) The Best American Essays 1996, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1996.

(With Michael Nichols) The Year of the Tiger, National Geographic Society (Washington, DC), 1998.

Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: An Illustrated History (companion to the documentary), Knopf (New York, NY), 1999.

Jazz: A History of America's Music (companion to the documentary), Knopf (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns) Mark Twain: An Illustrated Biography (companion to the documentary) Knopf (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Jim Corbett, Valmik Thapar, and Billy Arjan Singh, and Diane Raines Ward) Tigers and Tiger-wallahs (includes Tiger Wallahs: Encounters with the Men Who Tried to Save the Greatest of the Great Cats), Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (companion to the documentary), Knopf (New York, NY), 2004.

(With Ken Burns) The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945 (companion to the documentary), Knopf (New York, NY), 2007.

(With Wynton Marsalis) Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life, Random House (New York, NY), 2008.

Contributor to books, including A Tribute to John F. Kennedy, Great Ideas Today, Annals of America, Illustrated Bible, Illustrated History of World War II, Black Dialogues, Makers of America, The Negro in American History, Encyclopedia of American History, Story of America, Great Events of the Twentieth Century, Story of the Great West, Past Imperfect, Openings, Nature's Wonderlands, Days of Destiny, and What If 2. Writer of foreword for Black Bird Fly Away: Disabled in an Able-bodied World, by Hugh Gregory Gallagher, Vandamere Press, 1998. Contributor to periodicals, including Audubon, National Geographic, New York Review of Books, New York Times Book Review, and Smithsonian.

SIDELIGHTS:

Emmy Award winner Geoffrey C. Ward is probably best known for his documentary film scripts, including his collaboration with Ken and Ric Burns on the widely acclaimed public television documentary series The Civil War. But the author, in addition to working on other film and television projects, has written critically praised books of his own, most notably two biographies of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roo- sevelt. One of these, A First-class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt, garnered him prizes from the Los Angeles Times, the National Book Critics Circle, and the Society of American Historians. Ward has also had a rewarding career in the publishing field, serving as an art director and writer for the Reader's Digest General Book Division, as senior picture editor for Encyclopaedia Brittanica, and as editor of American Heritage magazine for five years.

As a young college student, Ward was initially interested in art and photography, obtaining a degree in studio art and founding Contemporary Photographer magazine while still attending classes at Oberlin College. After graduation, he carried these pursuits with him to become senior picture editor for Encyclopaedia Brittanica, where he planned illustration changes for the volumes' annual revisions—a task that also required gathering and writing captions for many pictures. During this period, Ward also began writing picture essays for other publications. He held similar positions in the next few years, leading him more deeply into writing in addition to working with pictures.

In 1970 Ward left Encyclopaedia Brittanica to found and edit Audience magazine. The periodical's goal was to blend good writing with quality graphics, and Ward selected poetry, fiction, paintings, prints, and photographs, and assigned articles to fill his magazine. Although Audience lasted only twenty-six months, it won several awards during that time. Another prestigious position Ward held in the world of publishing was as editor of American Heritage magazine. During his tenure there, the magazine went from hard to soft cover, and Ward commissioned and published original pieces by such notable authors as Maxine Hong Kingston, Louis Auchincloss, and Richard Rhodes. Throughout his career in publishing, Ward had been contributing to books, and when he left American Heritage in 1982 he became a freelance writer, though he continued to write a regular column for the magazine for eleven years.

Ward's first book was Treasures of the Maharajahs, published in 1983 as part of the Stonehenge "Treasures of the World" series. For this work he was able to draw on the experience of his high school days, which were spent in India. Ward attracted more attention, though, with a biography of U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, titled Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882-1905. As the title implies, the book concerns Roosevelt's early life, from his boyhood until the time he married his wife Eleanor. Ward writes about Roosevelt's family members as well as the era in which the future president matured. Critic Jack Lessenberry in the Detroit News had high praise for the volume, urging readers: "You simply must go buy this book today." He went on to add that the book "may tell us more about the man who became president than any other," and said that Ward had managed to "produce a book that reads as smoothly as a novel." Washington Post Book World reviewer Jonathan Yardley was less complimentary about Before the Trumpet, but conceded that when describing Roosevelt's somewhat uneventful early life, "Ward is up against dramatic deficiencies that would defeat just about any storyteller." Ward fared better with his second volume about the former president, A First-class Temperament. That volume won a number of prestigious awards, including the Francis Parkman Prize.

While Ward was busy writing books, he also found time to collaborate with filmmaker Ken Burns. Ward penned scripts for most of Burns's efforts, including Huey Long, a 1985 documentary film about the Louisiana politician. Chronicling Long's terms as Louisiana's governor and as a U.S. senator with eyes on the presidency until his assassination in 1935, the film was lauded by reviewer Vincent Canby, writing in the New York Times, as "a remarkably comprehensive portrait … meticulously researched, graceful, funny, and disturbing."

In 1990, as part of the team that produced and wrote the landmark public television series The Civil War, Ward's name became a household word. Teamed with Ken Burns and with the filmmaker's younger brother, Ric Burns, Ward helped create eleven hours' worth of what Harry F. Waters in Newsweek hailed as "a documentary masterpiece." Waters went on to explain that Ward and his collaborators, "without access to a single frame of battle footage, without resort to hokey reenactments or docu-drama inventions," had taken "the nation's most cataclysmic act of self definition and [brought] it hauntingly and wondrously alive." Ward and the Burnses used authentic still photographs, diaries, letters, and music from the Civil War period, and added footage of many of the important battlefields as they look in modern times, often taken at the same time of day and year that the original fighting occurred. They also recruited several famous actors and other notables to read from the authentic source materials and included interviews with historians who specialized in the Civil War. Though the film discusses the famous leaders of the period, including U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, it also focuses on how ordinary people were affected by the war, including enlisted men on both sides and the women who persevered on the home front. The result held viewers riveted despite the length, and high ratings were maintained over the five straight days it was shown on public television. Citing several of the influences that the Civil War has had on the subsequent history of the United States, critic Tom Shales, writing in the Washington Post, called The Civil War "a grippingly powerful film about who we were, who we are, and who we yet may be."

Ward also provided the narrative text for the book version of The Civil War, which received almost as much praise from reviewers as did the television documentary. New York Times Book Review contributor David Haward Bain wrote of The Civil War: An Illustrated History that, although it is "a companion to a nine-part Public Broadcasting Service documentary, this superbly designed book easily stands on its own." Herbert Mitgang hailed Ward especially, noting in the New York Times that as "a historian and biographer … [he] provides a sound interpretation of events, one that, it should be said, is straightforward and not revisionist history following computer printouts." Paul Hubbard in the National Review even found the book superior to the television version because "here one can pore over the illustrations and note every detail, gaze into the thousands of faces and ponder the thoughts and fears they reflect, read and reread the poignant letters written by soldiers and their loved ones."

Ward collaborated with Burns and others on a growing list of projects, one of which was the documentary series Baseball, which, like the game, is divided into nine "innings." Ward also wrote Baseball: An Illustrated History, called the "finest I have seen" by America contributor George W. Hunt, who compared it favorably to other books on baseball history. Discussing his relationship with Burns in an interview on the Public Broadcasting Service Web site, Ward stated, "I think the writer brings different things to different filmmakers. Ken Burns is very interested in words. I mean he's really very interested in them and he's not afraid of large numbers of them if they help tell the story. And so he and I, I think, work rather more closely than most producers and writers do."

Closest Companion: The Unknown Story of the Intimate Friendship between Franklin Roosevelt and Margaret Suckley is a collection of the writings of Suckley, called "Daisy," a distant cousin of Roosevelt who shared with him a close relationship until his death in 1945. After her death in 1991, her diaries and letters to and from Roosevelt were found in a suitcase under her bed, and they provide a personal portrait of the president, as well as details of history that he shared with her. Ilene Cooper wrote in Booklist that a weakness of the book "is how tedious the diaries become when he's not around." "Most dramatic are her entries on Roosevelt's last year," said an Economist writer. "Her final 150 pages—more than a third of the entire volume—are full of gripping details about approaching death." A Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that these writings are "skillfully distilled and woven together" by editor Ward.

The West: An Illustrated History, companion to the eight-part television documentary, was described by Thomas Curwen in People as "a vivid account of the American experience, filled with stories of the greed, folly, courage, ambition, and hope that still fuel the dreams of this nation." Jeff Turrentine, who reviewed the book in Forbes, called it "a comprehensive tour of an epoch…. This unromanticized look at our date with manifest destiny is a fascinating volume."

Ward wrote the script for Ken Burns's Thomas Jefferson, the strength of which "is its attention to the nuances in Jefferson's character and career," wrote Stanley Kauffmann in the New Republic. Kauffman felt that Burns and Ward "have a weakness for sentimental passages that detract from a fuller understanding of political events," but added that the effort "is historically on the mark about most of the important themes, including Jefferson and slavery. Where the facts are in doubt, as in the Sally Hemmings matter, the film presents all possibilities and wisely suspends final judgment. Where the facts are agreed upon but historians still differ, the film clearly and calmly airs these differences. Above all, Thomas Jefferson tries admirably hard to convey the complexity of Jefferson's personality, including his stubborn faith in a benign providence despite some crushing personal losses."

Frank Lloyd Wright, directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, with script by Ward, is a documentary about the famed architect. Variety contributor Todd McCarthy called the film "immaculately produced," and remarked that Wright's life story "is indisputably extraordinary, and is well served by the intelligence and curiosity Burns, Novick, and Ward bring to it."

Ward and Ken Burns again teamed up for the documentary and companion book, Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. The leaders of the suffrage movement had a long friendship, but neither lived to see women vote. The book includes essays by female historians and excerpts from speeches by Anthony and the more radical Stanton. Library Journal reviewer Eleanor J. Bader wrote that "readers can almost feel the heat of the pair's debates. Yet throughout, their friendship and mutual respect are palpable." Booklist contributor Brad Hooper called the book a "finely presented overview of Stanton and Anthony's lives." Christine Stansell wrote in the New Republic that Ward's book "is no mere tie-in. It can stand on its own as a popular rendition of sophisticated history. Ward writes beautifully, and he knows how to weigh evidence and how to assess the salience of events."

Jazz is a ten-part television documentary in which the lives of Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, and others are featured. Ward's companion book is Jazz: A History of America's Music, which contains copious illustrations and detailed text, a testimony to the six years of research that went into the series. A Publishers Weekly contributor was disappointed that the project did not touch on the African roots of jazz and the fact that the forty years since 1960 are covered in but one chapter. Of the book, the critic observed, "the writing is exceedingly good." Will Hermes wrote in Entertainment Weekly that Jazz is "a well-told story, but not the whole story." Hermes noted that some figures are "doted on while a giant like Sarah Vaughan gets slight treatment," and felt that "the lack of critical balance is troubling." Booklist reviewer Bonnie Smothers called the volume "a very competent and lovingly rendered history."

American Heritage contributor Gary Giddins called Ward "the foremost writer of historical documentaries in our time. Indeed, he is an innovator of the form." Giddins reviewed Ward's work with Burns, saying that "the cult of the director has perhaps obscured [Ward's] contributions, but it takes nothing from Ken Burns's extraordinary gifts to underscore that these series reflect Ward's scrupulous devotion to historical research and chronology; his capacity for capturing a life, great or common, in a telling anecdote; and his eloquence, which inevitably makes those who read his narrations sound like seers. The books he has written as companions to the series are themselves distinguished works of history." Ward told Giddins that "jazz has been a lifelong passion of mine, and of all the projects I've worked on with Ken, this was certainly the one I was most excited by, interested in, and emotionally attached to."

Ward later teamed with Dayton Duncan on Mark Twain, a four-hour documentary about one of America's most celebrated literary figures, directed by Ken Burns. The companion volume, titled Mark Twain: An Illustrated Biography, offers an intimate look at the writer's private and public personas. "In a prose uncluttered by academic jargon, the volume clearly suggests a monumental amount of research," noted Charles C. Nash in Library Journal, and a contributor in Publishers Weekly remarked that "the Burns team has done magnificent archival detective work and unearthed a treasure trove of rare Twain photographs." "Twain's trademark wanderlust kept the adventures coming during his life," wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor, "and they make for fascinating reading today."

Ward garnered an Emmy Award for outstanding writing for Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, a Ken Burns documentary about the first black heavyweight boxing champion. Johnson, who was born in Galveston, Texas, won the title in 1908 after defeating Canadian Tommy Burns, and two years later he reaffirmed his dominance with a fifteenth-round knockout of undefeated former champion James Jeffries in a fight dubbed the "Battle of the Century." "But beyond providing a fine account of Johnson's wild career," observed Variety critic Todd McCarthy, "the film fashions an extraordinary portrait of white supremacist thinking at its American pinnacle, when the notion of racial superiority was so important to the majority that a challenge to it could not even be allowed, let alone accepted."

In his companion volume to the film, Ward notes that the controversial pugilist angered mainstream society with his flamboyant personality and lavish lifestyle. "Johnson bowed to no one's idea of proper conduct in a segregated society—except his own," wrote Business Week contributor Mark Hyman. "Ward's most compelling storytelling, in fact, deals with the champ's relationships with white women, a challenge to a powerful taboo of the times." Johnson would eventually marry Lucille Cameron, a white woman, and after being convicted of violating the Mann Act, which outlawed the transportation of women across state lines for "immoral purposes," he fled to Europe for several years. He eventually lost his title to Jess Willard in Cuba, and in 1920 he returned to the United States to serve his prison sentence. Johnson died in 1948 following a car accident. Unforgivable Blackness is "a story of an odyssey, a testimony to Johnson's dedication and single-mindedness in his quest for a championship that he thought would rid him of bigotry and provide for him a good and stable life," observed John C. Walter in Afro-Americans in New York Life and History. "It is also a story of the intractableness of racism, and its hideous effects throughout all of American society."

Ward and Burns collaborated again on The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945, a seven-episode documentary that looks at the American experience in World War II by focusing on four American towns: Waterbury, Connecticut; Luverne, Minnesota; Mobile, Alabama; and Sacramento, California. "Methodically documenting World War II's progression chronologically through the experiences of those in four geographically spaced towns," wrote Variety Online Web site contributor Brian Lowry, "The War captures both the sweeping impact of a conflict that inexorably changed the world and the hardships endured by those who fought the battle at home as well as abroad." According to San Francisco Chronicle reviewer Tim Goodman, "The War is a remarkable storytelling feat and a visceral television experience, a twinned accomplishment that, combined, does the nearly impossible—it allows the rebirth of an overly familiar story and freshens it in astounding ways."

Comparing the process of writing a film to writing a book, Ward stated in his Public Broadcasting Service interview: "I don't think there's anything in filmmaking for me that is quite as exciting as finding something brand new, doing historical research, finding a diary or a letter that explains something people have always wondered about. That's the ultimate thrill, I think. But, filmmaking has its own wonderful rewards. It is wonderful to reach as many people as you can reach on television. That's a terrific feeling to know that you know millions of people are watching American history and staying with it."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, January, 2007, John C. Walter, review of Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, p. 122.

America, September 17, 1994, George W. Hunt, review of Baseball: An Illustrated History, p. 2.

American Heritage, April, 1995, review of Closest Companion: The Unknown Story of the Intimate Friendship between Franklin Roosevelt and Margaret Suckley, p. 134; December, 2000, Gary Giddins, "Jazz and America," p. 62; October, 2004, review of Unforgivable Blackness, p. 19.

American History, December, 1994, review of Baseball, p. 24; July, 1995, review of Closest Companion, p. 52.

American Libraries, October, 1994, Bill Ott, review of Baseball, p. 896.

Audubon, September, 1996, Linda Perney, review of The West: An Illustrated History, p. 110.

Black Issues Book Review, January-February, 2005, Art Rust, review of Unforgivable Blackness, p. 67.

Booklist, December 15, 1994, Carolyn Phelan, review of Shadow Ball: The History of the Negro Leagues, p. 751; April 15, 1995, Ilene Cooper, review of Closest Companion, p. 1476; October 15, 1996, Donna Seaman, review of The Best American Essays 1996, p. 397; September 1, 1999, Brad Hooper, review of Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: An Illustrated History, p. 6; January 1, 2000, Bonnie Smothers, review of Not for Ourselves Alone, p. 819; September 15, 2000, Bonnie Smothers, review of Jazz: A History of America's Music, p. 187; October 15, 2001, Margaret Flanagan, review of Mark Twain: An Illustrated Biography, p. 374; October 15, 2004, John Green, review of Unforgivable Blackness, p. 376; August 1, 2007, Gilbert Taylor, review of The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945, p. 30.

Business Week, November 22, 2004, Mark Hyman, "His Fists Couldn't Protect Him," review of Unforgivable Blackness, p. 32.

Detroit News, May 26, 1985, Jack Lessenberry, review of Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882-1905.

Economist, April 22, 1995, review of Closest Companion, p. 89.

Entertainment Weekly, December 8, 2000, Will Hermes, "Words Worth? At Sixty-five Dollars and 490 pages, Jazz, the Book, Goes for Broke but Comes up Just Short," p. 41.

Forbes, November 18, 1996, Jeff Turrentine, review of The West, p. S94.

Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2001, review of Mark Twain, p. 1346; September 1, 2004, review of Unforgivable Blackness, p. 855.

Library Journal, April 1, 1995, Karl Helicher, review of Closest Companion, p. 102; August, 1996, Teri P. Summey, review of The West, p. 91; November 15, 1996, Amy Boaz, review of The Best American Essays 1996, p. 61; October 15, 1999, Eleanor J. Bader, review of Not for Ourselves Alone, p. 84; November 1, 2001, Charles C. Nash, review of Mark Twain, p. 93; December 1, 2004, Thomas J. Davis, review of Unforgivable Blackness, p. 130.

Maclean's, December 19, 1994, review of Baseball, p. 57.

National Review, December 17, 1990, Paul Hubbard, review of The Civil War: An Illustrated History, p. 51.

New Republic, March 10, 1997, Stanley Kauffmann, review of Thomas Jefferson (film), p. 32; November 22, 1999, Christine Stansell, "E Pluribus Sepia," review of Not for Ourselves Alone, p. 36.

Newsweek, September 17, 1990, Harry F. Waters, review of The Civil War (television series), pp. 68-70; September 12, 1994, Matt Bai, review of Baseball, p. 68; November 8, 2004, David Gates, "The Great Black Hope; a New Biography Tells the Story of Jack Johnson, the Heavyweight Champ White America Loved to Hate," p. 54.

New Yorker, April 24, 1995, review of Closest Companion, p. 115.

New York Review of Books, May 11, 1995, Gore Vidal, review of Closest Companion, p. 4.

New York Times, September 28, 1985, Vincent Canby, review of Huey Long; September 5, 1990, Herbert Mitgang, review of The Civil War, p. B2.

New York Times Book Review, September 9, 1990, David Haward Bain, review of The Civil War, p. 26; September 18, 1994, Avery Corman, review of Baseball, p. 15; April 9, 1995, R.W.B. Lewis, review of Closest Companion, p. 3.

People, September 23, 1996, Thomas Curwen, review of The West, p. 34.

Publishers Weekly, February 27, 1995, review of Closest Companion, p. 92; September 30, 1996, review of The Best American Essays 1996, p. 77; September 6, 1999, review of Not for Ourselves Alone, p. 91; October 23, 2000, review of Jazz, p. 71; October 8, 2001, review of Mark Twain, p. 57; October 11, 2004, review of Unforgivable Blackness, p. 68; July 30, 2007, review of The War, p. 68.

San Francisco Chronicle, September 21, 2007, Tim Goodman, "WWII as Only Ken Burns Can Tell the Story," review of The War.

School Library Journal, December, 1994, Barbara A. Genco, review of Baseball, p. 31; January, 1995, Todd Morning, review of Shadow Ball, p. 132; June 1, 2002, Claudia Moore, review of Mark Twain, p. 175.

Southern Living, October, 1996, Gary D. Ford, review of The West, p. 108.

Variety, February 23, 1998, Todd McCarthy, review of Frank Lloyd Wright (film), p. 86.

Washington Post, September 23, 1990, Tom Shales, review of The Civil War (television series), pp. G1, G5.

Washington Post Book World, June 9, 1985, Jonathan Yardley, review of Before the Trumpet, pp. 3, 5.

ONLINE

American Heritage Web site,http://www.americanheritage.com/ (September 20, 2007), Allen Barra, "The Making of The War: An Interview with Geoffrey C. Ward."

Florentine Films Web site,http://www.florentinefilms.com/ (July 1, 2008), profile of Geoffrey C. Ward.

Public Broadcasting Service Web site,http://www.pbs.org/ (July 1, 2008), interview with Geoffrey C. Ward.

Variety Online,http://www.variety.com/ (September 5, 2004), Todd McCarthy, review of Unforgivable Blackness; (September 14, 2007), Brian Lowry, review of The War.