American history

Before the captivity narrative about a Mexican woman abducted by the Apache in the mid-1800s; before the storyline about Geronimo's surrender; before the torrent of details about the life and peoples on the borderlands between present-day Mexico and the U.S.; there's this first sentence:

In the beginning, things appear. Writing is a defiant gesture we’ve long since gotten used to: where there was nothing, somebody put something, and now everybody sees it. For example, the prairie.

Documentary producer and director Ken Burns came to prominence 35 years ago with The Civil War, a massively popular multi-part nonfiction series on PBS. His latest effort is a six-part series called The American Revolution.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the third and final volume of renowned feminist historian Blanche Weisen Cook's biography of Eleanor Roosevelt.

In Master of the Mountain, historian Henry Wiencek uses an explosive interpretation of evidence to show how, by the 1780s, Founding Father and slave owner Thomas Jefferson had gone from championing equality to rationalizing an abomination.

The Roosevelts' unorthodox marriage was equitable, sexually open — and spanned four decades. Hazel Rowley profiles the uncommon union of a four-term president and his first lady in Franklin And Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage.

A recent 13-CD box set called Next Stop Is Vietnam: The War on Record 1961-2008 documents the music that dominated the airwaves during the Vietnam War. Rock historian Ed Ward says the compilation could have used some "conscientious curation."

Fresh Air TV critic David Bianculli reviews HBO's new series John Adams, produced by Tom Hanks.

Fresh Air's TV critic previews The War, the new documentary series about World War II from filmmaker Ken Burns (The Civil War). It premieres Sept. 23 on PBS.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Americanization of Ben Franklin by Gordon S. Wood.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews “American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century” by Christine Stansell.