# List of Booknotes interviews first aired in 2004

Booknotes is an American television series on the C-SPAN network hosted by Brian Lamb, which originally aired from 1989 to 2004. The format of the show is a one-hour, one-on-one interview with a non-fiction author. The series was broadcast at 8 p.m. Eastern Time each Sunday night, and was the longest-running author interview program in U.S. broadcast history.
| First broadcast (with link to transcript / video) | Author | Book | Subject matter |
| January 4, 2004 | Brenda Wineapple | Hawthorne: A Life | Nathaniel Hawthorne |
| January 11, 2004 | Walter Mears | Deadlines Past: Forty Years of Presidential Campaigning—A Reporter’s Story | Memoir/Autobiography; Journalism |
| January 18, 2004 | John Seigenthaler | James K. Polk | James K. Polk |
| January 25, 2004 | Nathaniel Philbrick | Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838–1842 | Charles Wilkes; The United States Exploring Expedition |
| February 1, 2004 | Abigail Thernstrom | No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning | Education outcomes in the United States by race and other classifications |
| February 8, 2004 | Nikki Giovanni | The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968–1998 | Poetry |
| February 15, 2004 | Jon Meacham | Franklin & Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship | Franklin D. Roosevelt; Winston Churchill; Special Relationship |
| February 22, 2004 | Kenneth Silverman | Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F.B. Morse | Samuel Morse |
| February 29, 2004 | George Soros | The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power | Foreign policy of the United States |
| March 7, 2004 | Richard Perle | An End to Evil | The War on Terror |
| March 14, 2004 | John Dean | Warren G. Harding | Warren G. Harding |
| March 21, 2004 | Constance Hays | The Real Thing: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company | The Coca-Cola Company |
| March 28, 2004 | Michael Dobbs | Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America | Operation Pastorius |
| April 4, 2004 | Nicholas Capaldi | John Stuart Mill: A Biography | John Stuart Mill |
| April 11, 2004 | Martin Marty | Martin Luther | Martin Luther |
| April 18, 2004 | David Cay Johnston | Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich – and Cheat Everyone Else | Taxation in the United States |
| April 25, 2004 | Christopher Benson | Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America | Emmett Till |
| May 2, 2004 | Eric Lax | The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle | Penicillin |
| May 9, 2004 | Charles Ogletree | All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education | Brown v. Board of Education |
| May 16, 2004 | John Lewis Gaddis | Surprise, Security, and the American Experience | Burning of Washington; Attack on Pearl Harbor; September 11 attacks |
| May 23, 2004 | Joseph Califano | Inside: A Public and Private Life | Memoir/Autobiography |
| May 30, 2004 | Thomas P.M. Barnett | The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century | Grand strategy; Foreign policy of the United States |
| June 6, 2004 | Amy Goodman | The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them | Political corruption; Corruption in the United States; Concentration of media ownership |
| June 13, 2004 | Samuel Huntington | Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity | Culture of the United States |
| June 20, 2004 and June 27, 2004 | Simon Sebag Montefiore | Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar | Joseph Stalin |
| July 4, 2004 | Alyn Brodsky | Benjamin Rush: Patriot and Physician | Benjamin Rush |
| July 11, 2004 | Robert Kurson | Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II | Bill Nagle; John Chatterton; Underwater diving; German submarine U-869 |
| July 18, 2004 | Mark Perry | Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship That Changed America | Ulysses S. Grant; Mark Twain |
| July 25, 2004 | Mario Cuomo | Why Lincoln Matters: Today More Than Ever | Abraham Lincoln |
| August 1, 2004 | John McCain | Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life | Courage |
| August 8, 2004 | Maureen Dowd | Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk | George W. Bush |
| August 15, 2004 | Denny Hastert | Speaker: Lessons from 40 Years in Coaching and Politics | Memoir/Autobiography; The U.S. House of Representatives |
| August 22, 2004 | Dorie McCullough Lawson | Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children | Letters |
| August 29, 2004 | James Chace | 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs—The Election That Changed the Country | Woodrow Wilson; Theodore Roosevelt; William Howard Taft; Eugene Debs; United States presidential election of 1912 |
| September 5, 2004 | Richard Viguerie | America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power | Conservatism in the United States; Advertising mail; Conservative talk radio |
| September 12, 2004 | George McGovern | The Essential America: Our Founders and the Liberal Tradition | Modern liberalism in the United States; Founding Fathers of the United States |
| September 19, 2004 | Bryan Burrough | Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34 | Federal Bureau of Investigation; Category:American gangsters of the interwar period |
| September 26, 2004 | Jack Matlock, Jr. | Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended | Ronald Reagan; Mikhail Gorbachev; Cold War (1985–1991) |
| October 3, 2004 | John Ferling | Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 | John Adams; Thomas Jefferson; United States Presidential election of 1800 |
| October 10, 2004 | Hendrik Hertzberg | Politics: Observations and Arguments, 1966-2004 | Politics of the United States |
| October 17, 2004 | John McCaslin | Inside the Beltway: Offbeat Stories, Scoops and Shenanigans from Around the Nation's Capital | Politics of the United States; The Washington Times |
| October 24, 2004 | Antony Beevor | The Mystery Of Olga Chekhova | Olga Chekhova |
| October 31, 2004 | Chris Wallace | Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage | Courage; Whiskey Rebellion; Emancipation Proclamation; Pullman Strike; Second Bank of the United States; Impeachment of Andrew Johnson; Joint warfare in South Vietnam, 1963–1969 and The Great Society; Virginius Affair; Treaty of Portsmouth; The League of Nations; 1972 Nixon visit to China; Reagan Doctrine; Embargo Act of 1807; Lend-Lease; Berlin Airlift; Bay of Pigs Invasion; George W. Bush and the Iraq War |
| November 7, 2004 | Winslow Wheeler | The Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security | Military budget of the United States |
| November 14, 2004 | Stephen Greenblatt | Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare | William Shakespeare |
| November 21, 2004 | Peter Charles Hoffer | Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud – American History from Bancroft and Parkman To Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis and Goodwin | Historiography; Historical method; Plagiarism; Stephen Ambrose; Michael Bellesiles; Joseph Ellis; Doris Kearns Goodwin |
| November 28, 2004 | Peter Wallner | Franklin Pierce: New Hampshire's Favorite Son | Franklin Pierce |
| December 5, 2004 | Mark Edmundson | Why Read? | Literature |