Mark Twain 
Dayton Duncan
October 2, 2002

Dayton Duncan, a native Iowan, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in German literature. From there, he moved to New Hampshire, where he worked for The Keene Sentinel. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Old Farmer's Almanac, and American Heritage magazine. He is the author of seven books, including two award-winning books for young readers published by Little, Brown in 1996. People of the West was named a Notable Children’s Trade Book for 1996 by the National Council of Social Studies and the Children's Book Council, and The West: An Illustrated History for Children, was selected by The New Yorker magazine for it's short list of the 16 best children's books of 1996. That book also won The Wrangler award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. His next book, Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery was published in 1997 and a biography, Mark Twain, was released in November of 2001.

Duncan has also been involved for many years with the work of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. He was a consultant on Burns' award-winning series for public television, The Civil War and Baseball, and was co-writer and consulting producer for a 12-hour series, The West, about the history of the American West, which won the Erik Barnouw Award from the Organization of American Historians. He wrote and co-produced Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, a 4-hour documentary that attained the second-highest ratings in the history of PBS. He co-wrote and co-produced Mark Twain, Burns' most recent film.

He currently lives in Wadpole, New Hampshire with his wife, Dianne, and their two children.

For more information on Dayton Duncan, please click on the links below:

His Biography at AEI Speakers Bureau.

Books by Dayton Duncan at Google Books.

Iowa Public Television Interviews

More on The West

WAR ON CRIME: Bandits, G-Men and the Politics of Mass Culture 
Dr. Claire Potter 
December 10, 2002

Claire Potter is Associate Professor of History and Director of American Studies at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT. She received her B.A. from Yale University in 1980, and her Ph.D. from New York University in 1990. A specialist in the political and cultural history of the twentieth century United States, she has won several awards for her research, including the Charlotte Newcombe fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and a Beveridge research grant from the American Historical Association.

She is the author of War on Crime: Bandits, G-Men and the Politics of Mass Culture (Rutgers Press, 1998) and is currently at work on two other volumes which explore the emergence of political history as a field of professional scholarly activity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century U.S. She has published in the academic journals Feminist Studies and Cultural Critique, writes regularly for the Women's Review of Books, and has appeared in television documentaries on the FBI for the History Channel, Biography, and PBS's American Experience series.

For more on Dr. Claire Potter, please view the following:

Dr. Potter's bio page .

Dr. Potter's Blog on Twitter.

JOAN OF ARC 
Dr. Kelly DeVries
March 6, 2003

Kelly DeVries holds a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto and is currently Professor of History at Loyola College in Maryland. He is the author of six books, including Guns and Men in Medieval Europe, 1200-1500: Studies in Military History and Technology, Joan of Arc: A Military History, The Norwegian Invasion of England in 1066, Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century: Discipline, Tactics and Technology, and Medieval Military Technology and several articles on medieval military historical and technological subjects.

He also serves as the Secretary-General of the United States Commission of Military History, editor of The Journal of Medieval Military History, and Series Editor of The History of Warfare for Brill Publishers.

To learn more about Kelly DeVries, please view the following:

Professor DeVries page at Loyola College, Maryland.

2008 Nachbar Award Recipient

Books by Kelly DeVries can be found at Barnes & Noble.

HOW THE CIVIL WAR STILL LIVES 
Dr. James I. Robertson
April 2, 2003

James I. Robertson Jr. is an Alumni Distinguished Professor and the Executive Director of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech, where he teaches the largest Civil War history class in America, with an average of 250 students per semester. A native of Danville, Virginia, Dr. Robertson received his B.A. from Randolph-Macon College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Emory University and went on to become the recipient of every major award given in the field of Civil War history. He appears regularly in Civil War programs on the Arts & Entertainment Network, the History Channel, C-Span, and public television and does a weekly Civil War program which is aired on eleven public radio stations. Additionally, he was selected by the Virginia Press Association for the "2000 Virginian of the Year Award" and is currently the historical consultant for the Hollywood production, Gods and Generals. His award-winning books include: The Stonewall Brigade, General A.P. Hill, Soldiers Blue and Gray, Civil War! America Becomes One Nation, and a 950-page biography, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend, which won an unprecedented eight national prizes.

For more information about Dr. James Robertson, please view his bio page on the Virginia Tech University website.

Dr. Robertson is a distinguished member of the staff of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies.