THE SCREENWRITER discovered that one of his subjects had composed a little-known testament that deserves a place in our highest literary canon
Three movies newly available on video cast a cold and, occasionally, even scornful eye on their subjects.
William Fletcher went off to war with surprisingly few illusions, and nothing he saw there gave him new ones.
Polio’s legacy to those who survived it includes uncommon stamina and courage and one grim new joke.
An Argentinian Artist Looks at America’s Music
How a half-dozen pillars of the community became infatuated with the idea of shedding (someone else’s) blood
A luminously written inquiry into the history of one man’s family turns out to be about all of us.
He had a long, intimate friendship that stayed unknown for almost half a century after his death.
Three new studies offer important glimpses into a subject whose significance never dwindles.
In a sordid new biography, the great blues singer’s life has eclipsed her art.
The La Follette children grew up in the painful brilliance shed by an illustrious father.
FDR and Eleanor could do just about anything—beat a Depression, win a world war—except please each other.
What happened when a historian largely indifferent to the subject set out to write the script for Ken Burns’s monumental new documentary
A veteran columnist who defies summarization has published a dazzling new compendium of his work.
A very distant world of Puritans and the Native Americans they dispossessed is brought to complex life by John Demos in his latest book.
Benedict Arnold never quite understood the cause he served superbly and then betrayed.
Want to write about a famous crime? Why not start out by totally ignoring character and motive?
The mail he received reminds us anew of how little praise he received, and how philosophically he bore abuse.
He wrote down everything he saw in a career that stretched from the Civil War well into this century.
A fine documentary on the Great Depression, an admirable accompanying book, and a truly wretched biography
The great Louisiana bluesman made his first recordings inside Angola Penitentiary.
The most celebrated of all Indian leaders gets his first new biography in more than half a century.
