Probably no television program in recent times echoes this more than “The Civil War” on PBS. Ken Burns’ 11-hour account of the War Between the States is an ironic masterpiece. It’s as scintillating and utterly seductive as television gets, a Yankee Doodle Dandy of a historical extravang...
Burns perceives his documentaries as a quilt. The Brooklyn Bridge, which “could not have been built had it not been for this new metal called steel which came out of that war,” is “one square.” The Shakers sect, which “declined because of the economic and spiritual changes as a re...