A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Episode Five: This Is What We Do (July 1967-December 1967) Written by: Geoffrey C. Ward Directed by: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick American casualties and enemy body counts mount as Marines face deadly North Vietnamese ambushes and artillery south of the DMZ and Army units chase an elusive enemy in the Central Highlands. Hanoi lays plans for a massive surprise offensive, and the Johnson administration reassures the American public that victory is in sight. - from The Vietnam War's Episode List On September 21, 2017, 300 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) stations throughout the U.S. aired "This Is What We Do (July 1967-December 1967," the fifth part of directors Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War. This 10-part epic series is an 18-hour look at "one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history." Burns, Novick, and Florentine Films' array of producers, cinematographers, composers, researchers, and

Episode Four: Resolve (January 1966-June 1967) Written by: Geoffrey C. Ward Directed by: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Defying American airpower, North Vietnamese troops and materiel stream down the Ho Chi Minh Trail into the South while Saigon struggles to "pacify" the countryside. As an antiwar movement builds back home, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and Marines discover that the war they are being asked to fight in Vietnam is nothing like their fathers' war. - from The Vietnam War's Episode List On September 20, 2017, viewers who tuned in to their local Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) stations watched "Resolve (January 1966-June 1967)," Episode Four of The Vietnam War, a 10-part documentary series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick ( Prohibition, The War ). A decade in the making, this 18-hour look at one of the darkest chapters of American and Vietnamese history was produced by Burns ( The Civil War ), Novick, and Sarah Botstein. Its tag

Episode Three: The River Styx (January 1964-December 1965) Written by: Geoffrey C. Ward Directed by: Ken Burns & Lynn Novick With South Vietnam in chaos, hardliners in Hanoi seize the initiative and send combat troops to the South, accelerating the insurgency. Fearing Saigon's collapse, President Johnson escalates America's military commitment, authorizing sustained bombing of the North and deploying ground troops in the South. - from The Vietnam War's Episode List On September 19, 2017, 300 PBS affiliates across the U.S. aired "The River Styx (January 1964-December 1965)," Episode Three of The Vietnam War,  a 10-part documentary series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick ( The War, Prohibition ). Produced by Burns, Novick, and Sarah Botstein, this 18-hour examination of one of the most divisive events in modern American history was 10 years in the making. It features interviews of participants from all sides, including civilians and veter

Hi there, Constant Reader. It’s 11:03 a.m. EST on a cool Saturday morning in Miami. The current temperature is 76 degrees Fahrenheit under cloudy skies. With an east-northeasterly wind blowing at 15 mph (gusts of up to 21 mph) and humidity levels at 51%, the feels-like temperature is 76 degrees Fahrenheit. So it’s not too chilly here, but not warm enough to turn on the air conditioner. I have been reading a lot over the past few days. Partly because I have been a voracious reader since I was a child, partly because I am a book reviewer for Examiner, but mostly because I need to read a lot in order to be a good writer. Right now my main focus is non-fiction, with an emphasis on U.S. military and political history. I’m also half-heartedly reading some fiction, especially Stephen King’s 11/22/63 and his epic Dark Tower series. I used to post my “current reading lists” at the now-defunct Bubblews and the soon-to-be defunct Persona Paper every so often, especially in “blog doldrums

Pros: Gripping and well-written account of the U.S. Army's greatest battle   Cons: None. The Bottom Line: Although it covers the same battle as "The Bitter Woods," A Time for Trumpets is more focused and benefits from the declassification of the "Ultra" secret. Great read! On December 16, 1944, elements of three German armies -- 14 infantry and five panzer divisions in all -- attacked part of the American First Army along an 80-mile front along Germany's border with Belgium and Luxembourg. The sudden and unexpected counteroffensive hit the Americans in an area the Allies thought would be a nice, quiet sector for combat-weary divisions to rest and refit while green divisions fresh from the States could be acclimated to life on the line: the dark and deep forests of the Ardennes. Planned and ordered by Adolf Hitler himself, this massive onslaught was launched with one objective in mind: penetrate the American lines, pass through the "impassable&

(C) 1992 Simon & Schuster The trouble with history, particularly modern history, is that events can be interpreted and presented in different ways. Consider, for instance, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Some books, such as Jim Bishop's The Day Kennedy Was Shot and Gerald Posner's Case Closed , point the finger at Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone gunman. Others, such as David Lifton's Best Evidence , claim there was a vast conspiracy to shoot Kennedy in Dallas, Texas and to cover this violent coup d'etat up so Lyndon Johnson could be President and escalate the Vietnam War. I don't believe the conspiracy theorists and they'll never get a dime from me, but nevertheless there are plenty of people who do believe Lifton and his other "there was a second gunman in the grassy knoll" compadres. By taking a fact here, adding a supposition there, and by presenting information selectively to make it fit an author's particular

Because World War II was the defining conflict of the 20th Century - its aftermath continues to shape our lives almost 70 years later - and because it was a globe-spanning conflict, it is not surprising that many filmmakers continue to chronicle those awfully bloody six years that ended over 50 million lives - most of them civilian lives. Some, of course, are big Hollywood recreations of actual battles ( The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far ) or fact-based miniseries along the lines of Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Others are fictional stories that range from the somber eulogy of Saving Private Ryan to the more action-oriented baubles a la The Dirty Dozen and Where Eagles Dare, both of which exemplify the Commando Raid Adventure sub-genre. Nevertheless, from the dawn of the Television Age back in the 1940s and ‘50s, the millions of feet of combat and propaganda footage shot by both the Axis and Allies have been mined for a plethora of documentaries made for television, st

The most important programming public television offers, even with the existence of The History Channel, is a diverse range of historical documentaries that are never aired on the other broadcast networks. In the age of American Idol and The Fear Factor, it's not very easy to find well-written non-fiction television fare such as PBS' 1990 epic, The Civil War. With its then-innovative mix of photos and paintings,a wonderful script by Ken and Ric Burns, voiceovers by famous actors like Morgan Freeman, Sam Waterston and George Plimpton, a haunting musical score (which featured Fiddle Fever's now-famous "Ashokan Farewell") and a very effective narration by writer/historian David McCullough (author of The Path Between the Seas).  Not only did PBS release the series on home video, but Knopf published a "companion volume" or book tie-in.  The Civil War, written by Ken Burns, Ric Burns and historian Geoffrey C. Ward, is the companion volume to the outstand

An Odd Couple For most of his life, Washington was in love with a woman named Sally Fairfax, wife of George William Fairfax -- Washington's neighbor and best friend. Although his passions for the worldly and beautiful Sally probably never waned, Washington settled for a much more practical match: the widow Martha Custis, whose considerable holdings made him the wealthy gentleman he longed to be. The two were married in January 1759 and made an odd couple indeed -- George, a giant for his time at about 6' 2", towered over his portly bride, whose head didn't make it to his shoulders.   -- Cormac O'Brien,  Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the Men of the White House   Do you remember your American History classes in high school or college? Remember having to take notes full of dry facts and statistics about such topics as the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Smoot-Hawley Act,

Just as Cornelius Ryan’s three major works about World War II (The Longest Day, The Last Battle, and A Bridge Too Far) focus on the last 11 months of the conflict in Europe, the late Gordon W. Prange and his collaborators Donald Goldstein and Katherine Dillon zeroed in on the Pearl Harbor saga and its aftermath. No less than five major books by Prange and Co. deal with the series of events that occurred before, during, and after. Of these, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor is the first and most important volume.  At Dawn We Slept covers nearly the entire 12-month period leading up to the “day of infamy” that marked America’s entry into World War II. It provides amazing insights into both the Japanese and American mindsets, and, most important, explodes the revisionists’ myth that Japan’s attack succeeded because President Franklin D. Roosevelt withheld critical information from Army and Navy commanders in Hawaii.  Prange researched the Pearl Harbor affair for 37 y

War, despite being one of humanity's worst innovations, nevertheless exerts a strange fascination for most people, hence its enduring appeal as a subject in both the printed page and movies. Great drama, or so we were told in high school English class, is based on some type of conflict (man vs. nature, man vs. fate, man vs. himself, and man vs. man), and war is, after all, the ultimate expression of conflict. No other human endeavor exhibits so many contrasting extremes; on the one hand, the bonding and comradeship born out of the shared dangers and miseries is unrivaled by anything in civilian life, and this is one of the themes many of the best war movies explore in varying degrees. Men and women often exhibit their finest traits under the strains of war: courage, loyalty, determination, inventiveness, and self-sacrifice. At the other extreme, war brings out the worst in people: cowardice, selfishness, cruelty, amorality, treachery, and avarice.  There is also no awe-inspiring