Culture

‘Dean of American Historians’: Ken Burns on William E. Leuchtenburg

Published

1 year ago

January 30, 2025

‘Dean of American Historians’: Ken Burns on William E. Leuchtenburg

Ken Burns was in his studio working on the final edits of a forthcoming documentary film series on the American Revolution when he learned on Tuesday that the historian William E. Leuchtenburg had died at 102.

“I had to get up and go be by myself for a while,” Mr. Burns said in an interview. “Everything just crashed to a halt.”

In his view, Mr. Leuchtenburg was “one of the great historians, if not the dean of American historians in the United States, for his work on the presidency.”

For more than 40 years, Mr. Leuchtenburg was a close adviser and friend to Mr. Burns, appearing in three of his documentaries — “Prohibition” (2011), “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History” (2014) and “Benjamin Franklin” (2022) — and consulting on many more.

The Times spoke to Mr. Burns on Wednesday about Mr. Leuchtenburg’s career. His observations, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, are below.

A Friendly Correspondent

He would send me notes all the time. My files are filled with these notes with little schoolboy handwriting. It reminded me of the way I wrote cursive when I was in the eighth grade. I just want to imagine that he had a filing system that looked like the cavernous place at the end of “Citizen Kane” or “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” because he could not have had so many references at his hand. He would just bring them up. It might be baseball, which he and I both passionately loved. It might be jazz. It might be World War II. Obviously the presidency. Vietnam. Really all of the kinds of things that we’ve done. He had an interest in what we were doing and how we were doing it that made him an extraordinarily helpful contributor.

Baseball and Booze

He made particularly important contributions to our history of baseball, to the Second World War, to our Prohibition film — in which we learned personally from him the very, very complicated internal dynamics, not just about what took place in Prohibition, but his own personal family life in which both his parents were alcoholics. And so the repeal for him was not a good thing. He also understood, hilariously and intimately, the sexual revolution that was going on in the 1920s among women, and just flat-out said that people discovered the clitoris. And that was, like, whoa!

Picturing the Depression

He was a storyteller. All you need to do is go into the fifth episode of the Roosevelt series and look at his concise way of explaining what it was. He first talks about filling up a stadium with people and then emptying it and then filling it up again. And if you did this over and over again, you would get the number of people who had gone out of work. It was just such a vivid description.

Working Without Him

I’m going to cry talking about it, but it’s just this gigantic and unfillable hole. He taught us well, though. He’s imparted not just facts, but attitudes and relationships and methodologies that we’ll save. We’ll be poorer for not having Bill to come and look at a rough cut of something that he shouldn’t know anything about but then inevitably knows a ton. We’ll muddle through.

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Culture

Try This Quiz on Thrilling Books That Became Popular Movies

Published

5 days ago

February 23, 2026

Press Room

Try This Quiz on Thrilling Books That Became Popular Movies

Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights thrillers first published as novels (or graphic novels) that were adapted into popular films. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the books and their screen versions.

Culture

Test Your Knowledge of the Authors and Events That Helped Shape the United States

Published

2 weeks ago

February 16, 2026

Press Room

Test Your Knowledge of the Authors and Events That Helped Shape the United States

Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. In honor of Gen. George Washington’s birthday on Feb. 22, this week’s super-size challenge is focused on the literature and history related to the American Revolution. In the 10 multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to exhibits, books and other materials related to this intense chapter in the country’s story, including an award-winning biography of the general and first U.S. president.

Culture

Video: How Much Do You Know About Romance Books?

Published

2 weeks ago

February 13, 2026

Press Room

Video: How Much Do You Know About Romance Books?

Let’s play romance roulette. No genre has dominated the books world in the last few years. Like romance, it accounts for the biggest percentage of book sales, their avid fan bases. Everyone has been talking about romance as a Book Review editor and as a fan of the genre myself, I put together a to z glossary of 101 terms that you should know if you want to understand the world of romance are cinnamon roll. You may think a cinnamon roll is a delicious breakfast treat, but in a romance novel, this refers to a typically male character who is so sweet and tender and precious that you just want to protect him and his beautiful heart from the world. Ooh, a rake. This is basically the Playboy of historical romance. He defies societal rules. He drinks, he gambles. He’s out on the town all night and is a very prolific lover with a bit of a reputation as a ladies’ man. FEI these are super strong, super sexy, super powerful, immortal, fairy like creatures. One of my favorite discoveries in terms that I learned was stern brunch daddy. A lot of daddy’s usually a male love interest who seems very intimidating and alpha, but then turns out to be a total softie who just wants to make his love interest brunch. I think there’s a misconception that because these books can follow these typical patterns, that they can be predictable and boring. But I think what makes a really great romance novel is the way that these writers use the tropes in interesting ways, or subvert them. If you can think of it, there’s probably a romance novel about it. Oops, there’s only one bed. This is one of my personal favorite tropes is a twist on forced proximity. Characters find themselves in very close quarters, where inevitably sparks start to fly. Why choose is the porkulus dose of the romance world. Sometimes the best way to resolve a love triangle is by turning it into a circle, where everyone is invited to play. Oops, we lost one spice level. There’s a really wide spectrum. You can range from really low heat or no spice, what might also be called kisses. Only then you start to get into what we call closed door or fade to Black. These books go right up to the moment of intimacy, and then you get into what we call open door, which is more explicit. And sometimes these can get very high heat or spicy and even start verging into kink. There’s one thing that almost every romance novel has in common. It’s that no matter what the characters get up to in the end, it ends with a happily ever after. I say almost every romance novel. Sometimes you’re just happy for now.