An American Socrates, Dumbed Down

Ken Burns is America’s favorite documentary-maker, judging by his success over forty years now. If anyone speaks on the authority of popularity as a liberal historian of America, it’s him, and he has spoken on the Civil War, World War II, the Vietnam War, baseball, country music, jazz, and several important American symbols and men. He has taken over the job of national historian for respectable people, following their assumption that patriotic feeling could substitute for long study or sharp judgment.