Ward. He has three children. When he was nine years old, Ward contracted poliomyelitis, and wears leg braces. He describes hearing Louis Armstrong's recording of "West End Blues" on the radio while in the hospital and noted its profound impact on his life. He later cited Franklin Roosevelt as a source of inspiration on how to overcome his handicap. When interviewed for The Roosevelts, Ward "was determined not to get emotional", as Ken Burns said later, when discussing the "terror" felt by FDR during his ordeal in 1921; Burns did not mention Ward's disability on camera, but he had waited until the end of their interview before getting to questions on FDR's polio, at which point Ward "was taken aback and the emotions caught him". Ward considers British broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough to be "the best television writer in the history of the medium." Ward describes himself as a "lifelong liberal Democrat." Works Books Lincoln’s Thought and the Present (1976), Sangamon State University Treasures of the World: The Maharajas (1983), Time Life, New York Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882-1905 (1985), Harper & Row; New York A First Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt (1989), Harper & Row. The Civil War: An Illustrated History, (1990), with Ric and Ken Burns; based upon PBS television series, Alfred A. Knopf American Originals: The Private Worlds of Some Singular Men and Women (1991), HarperCollins Tiger-Wallahs: Encounters with the Men Who Tried to Save the Greatest of the Cats (1993), with Diane Raines Ward; HarperCollins Baseball: An Illustrated History (1994), with Ken Burns; Alfred A. Knopf Closest Companion: The Unknown Story of the Intimate Friendship Between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Margaret Suckley (1995), Houghton Mifflin The West: An Illustrated History (1997), Little, Brown & Co The Year of the Tiger (1998), with Michael Nichols; National Geographic Books Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (1999), with Ken Burns; Alfred A. Knopf Jazz: A History of America’s Music (2000), with Ken Burns; Alfred A. Knopf Mark Twain (2001), with Dayton Duncan; Alfred A. Knopf Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2004); Alfred A. Knopf The War: An Intimate History (2007), with Ken Burns; Alfred A. Knopf Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life (2008), with Wynton Marsalis; Random House A Disposition to be Rich: How a Small-Town Pastor’s Son