I’ve seen better more accurate documentaries done on the Civil War. What separates Burn’s series from the others was the fact he it gotten underwritten & shown on PBS, so he got to make the bigger PR splash to the mostly non-reading uninterested in history (unless spoon-fed & jazzed up with nice music! Which he did!) TV crowd. Now this crowd does think its sophisticated & intellectual since it watches PBS. Then the other part of the Burn’s documentary that makes it stand out was the late Shelby Foote. He made an otherwise mediocre series worth watching.
With regards to Civil War era stuff...just fyi, a biography of Grant is coming out in the fall written by Ron Chernow (Hamilton, Washington). It definitely will go into Grant’s presidency, but I’m sure will be good on the Civil War era also. :)
And...how could anyone fault his work on Baseball?
He turned an otherwise arcane history into...well...Baseball and Apple Pie, pure Americana.
A work of art.
“the late Shelby Foote. He made an otherwise mediocre series worth watching.”
Agreed, definitely the best part of The Civil War documentary.
The other famous TV Documentary on VietNam is Bill Kurtis on Agent Orange. I worked on a Chicago story with Kurtis a little, and more with his producer, who also did some producing for 60 minutes.
Assuming I was one of them, they were openly callous and boastful about the way they twisted the story, especially the editing, to present THEIR truth.
But Bill Kurtis was the model for Ted Baxter on the Mary Tyler Moore show, according to Bill’s CBS producer back when MTM was in its first season. Bill Kurtis truly does not have what it takes to be a historian, or analyst.
He is just a pretty face and an even prettier voice.