A review of Ric Burns’ “New York: A Documentary History”

“Whereupon the Citty and Fort Amsterdam and Province of the New Netherlands were surrendered under His Most Exct. Mat’s. Obedience, made and concluded the 27th. day of September 1664.”

– “Articles of Capitulation on the Reduction of New Netherland,” better known as the “Articles of Surrender of New Netherland” (signed on the 29th of September 1664) – the document that transformed the Dutch-speaking “New Amsterdam” into the English-speaking “New York City”

A television history of New York City, the largest city in the United States

It is the great paradox of New York City. On the one hand, it is a historic city, where many great historical events have taken place. But, on the other hand, very little of it looks anything like it once did. Most cities have made inroads upon the local environment, turning natural wildernesses into sprawling urban landscapes. But even the more urban landmarks of New York City are often destroyed, to build something else in their place. And, on a different note, the city’s history is, in many ways, a microcosm of the larger history of the United States. In the history of this one city, you see conflict between different groups – between long-standing families and relatively recent immigrants. You see conflict between management and labor, between city and state concerns, and between local and national concerns. And you see national economic trends realized on the local level – from the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, to the “Roaring Twenties” and the Great Depression. Most of the greatest conflicts of American history can, to some degree, be seen here in the history of this one city. Thus, PBS gave filmmaker Ric Burns the green light … to produce a television history of the city. In the DVD set that I’ve been watching, I have seen 17 hours of great storytelling. They cover the city’s initial seventeenth-century colonization by the Dutch to the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001 – and beyond! It is an engrossing yarn, and might merit a brief overview in this blog post.

New Amsterdam in 1664 – the predecessor of New York City

A review of Ken Burns’ “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History”

A miniseries covering Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Eleanor Roosevelt

Just as the Americans remember Mr. Churchill, so do the British remember Mr. Roosevelt. But when people in Britain hear the name “Roosevelt,” they tend to think of Franklin Roosevelt, the man who led the United States during World War II. Many in Britain don’t even realize that there was another “Roosevelt” president before him. That is, there was Theodore Roosevelt, in the early twentieth century. Theodore Roosevelt is a little more famous in America than he is abroad. Nonetheless, even Americans will hear the word “Roosevelt,” and instead think of his fifth cousin Franklin Roosevelt. There were two famous divisions of the Roosevelt family, of which this documentary makes extensive note. One was the “Oyster Bay Roosevelts,” the branch that produced Theodore Roosevelt. The other was the “Hyde Park Roosevelts,” the branch that produced FDR. But there was another Roosevelt who was one of the bridges between these two branches – although there were other marriages between the branches. That is, there was Eleanor Roosevelt. She was born into the “Oyster Bay Roosevelts” as Theodore Roosevelt’s niece. But she married into the “Hyde Park Roosevelts,” when she married FDR – her own fifth cousin once removed. These are the three principal characters of the story.

Herbert Hoover: More interventionist than he’s remembered

How much of the blame for the Great Depression belongs to Herbert Hoover?

Herbert Hoover had been president for only seven months, when the American stock market crashed in October of 1929. The Wall Street Crash of ‘29, sometimes called the “Great Crash,” is often marked as the beginning of the Great Depression. But this nation has had several other stock market crashes in its long history, and recovered much more quickly from most of these other crashes. Thus, I’m not entirely convinced that the 1929 Crash is what “caused” the Depression, although it was certainly a catastrophe of gargantuan proportions. Regardless, Herbert Hoover got the blame for the crash, and for the truly Great Depression that soon followed it. Many homeless Americans then lived in shanty towns that came to be called “Hoovervilles,” named (with some bitterness) after him. But how much of the blame does Herbert Hoover really deserve for this (and he does indeed deserve some)? What is the legacy of Herbert Hoover’s presidency? And just where did Mr. Hoover come from? These are the questions that this post will attempt to answer.

Herbert Hoover

A review of PBS’s “Bonnie & Clyde” (American Experience)

It’s strange that people romanticize Bonnie & Clyde, since they murdered 11 people (or more) …

It’s strange that people romanticize Bonnie & Clyde, since they murdered eleven people or more. Wikipedia says that it must have been at least thirteen, consisting of nine police officers and four civilians at the very least. Whatever the exact number, they were among the most notorious outlaws in American history. They were especially known for their bank robberies, although they preferred to rob filling stations and small stores instead. They were active during the Great Depression, and usually operated in the Central United States. Most people wouldn’t know the names of their gang’s other members, but many have heard of Bonnie & Clyde themselves. There’s a certain air of romanticism to them, which has long been hard for me to understand. People seem especially to love the romance between the two main figures.

A review of PBS’s “Eleanor Roosevelt” movie

“A snub is the effort of a person who feels superior to make someone else feel inferior. To do so, he has to find someone who can be made to feel inferior.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt, at a White House press conference in 1935 – speaking of how a UC-Berkeley professor had refused to host an event where her husband’s Secretary of Labor gave a speech at the school’s Charter Day (often quoted as “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”)

The longest-serving First Lady in American history …

She is the longest-serving First Lady in American history. Her famous husband was elected to four terms (even if he didn’t complete the last one), so she served for 12 years as First Lady – far longer than anyone else! This film is the longest PBS documentary to focus specifically on her life. She was also one of the three protagonists in Ken Burns’ “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History,” which I have not seen. But there were two other main characters in that series, which were Franklin Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt – the latter of whom was much earlier than either Franklin or Eleanor. Thus, to your pain or pleasure, the Ken Burns series focuses on others besides her. By contrast, this PBS documentary focuses entirely on her, and spends two and a half hours on her life story. There’s an advantage to their focusing entirely on one person, even if their coverage is still comparatively short in this regard.

A review of “Crashes, Booms, Panics, and Government Regulation” (audiobook)

So I was recently listening to some presentations from an audio series about investment. This installment was called “Crashes, Booms, Panics, and Government Regulation.” I found out that it was actually two presentations. One was called “Crashes, Booms, and Busts,” and the other was called “The New Deal and Government Regulation.” Both were more historical than I would have thought, which added to the appeal for someone like me.

A review of “Keynes and the Keynesian Revolution” (audiobook)

“But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again.”

– John Maynard Keynes, in “A Tract on Monetary Reform” (1923), Chapter 3

I recently listened to an audiobook about the British economist John Maynard Keynes, who lived from 1883 to 1946. It was a good audiobook, which spoke of both his academic career and his political career. For example, he did some important diplomacy for the British government, and was responsible for some of the economic provisions of the Treaty of Versailles (the treaty that ended World War One). He also helped to secure some loans from the American government, which helped to improve his country's postwar economy somewhat – despite the interest rates which we imposed on this loan.

A review of Ken Burns’ “Jazz” (PBS series)

"Jazz is the assassination, the murdering, the slaying of syncopation. I would even go so far as to confess that we are musical anarchists."

- Nick La Rocca, leader of the first jazz band to make a record

An opinion from a longtime fan and (amateur) musician ...

I should preface this review by saying that I am a longtime fan of jazz music, as well as a longtime fan of both history and the Ken Burns documentaries about it. I freely acknowledge that I am not an expert on music history (jazz or otherwise), and do not consider myself to be a true musician - much as I would like to call myself by this distinguished title. I have played piano for a long time, it is true, and I have played jazz (and other styles) by ear. But I am neither a professional musician nor particularly talented in my performance, and consider myself only an enthusiastic fan with a sometime musical hobby. That being said, I am entitled to my opinion about it as much as anyone else, and so offer this review to any who might enjoy it.

A review of PBS's “FDR” movie

"This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself ... "

- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his First Inaugural Address (4 March 1933)

How does this compare to other films about the Roosevelts, and other films by this filmmaker?

I should give a disclaimer up front that I have not seen Ken Burns' series "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History," which includes considerable material on both Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. Although I've heard that it's weaved together fairly well (and tells their lives in parallel), I am somewhat put off by the length of the series, and feel no particular need to watch it anyway - at this time, at least - when I have this fine film about FDR (and another about his famous cousin Theodore Roosevelt). Perhaps I will get around to watching it someday - I've heard that it's sometimes available on Netflix - but for now, at least, I'll confine my made-for-television biographies of FDR to this classic one by David Grubin. He is also the maker of PBS's films on Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Truman, and LBJ. (I might also note one other thing about this filmmaker, which is that he made some films about a few notable Europeans as well, such as Napoleon and Marie Antoinette, which are also quite good.)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Some of the positive features of this documentary

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, this television biography of FDR is quite good. With plenty of real photographs and footage of him, it manages to tell the story with considerable interest and visual detail. It has interviews with his descendants (along with some former members of his administration and a number of scholarly talking heads); and there's also a notable interview with one of Churchill's daughters, where she comments on this famous relationship between the two men. This was, of course, one of the great and important relationships of World War II. FDR actually got us involved in the war long before Pearl Harbor, with the Lend-Lease aid to Britain, and the Navy's involvement in the Battle of the Atlantic. Although not many would appreciate it today, FDR was pushing the envelope on what Americans would tolerate in this area; and he may have helped to save Britain by his successful advocacy of (at least some) early American involvement in the war.

Atlantic Charter, 1941 - a meeting between FDR and Churchill aboard the HMS Prince of Wales

A review of “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression”

We've all heard stories about how bad things were during the Great Depression, with extensive poverty and massive unemployment - perhaps the only economic crisis worse than our current one. But the history classes don't often go into the question of why; leaving the complicated subject of causation to economists, rather than the historians of the subject. When history classes do comment on the "why" of the Depression, they often paint a glowing picture of big government, with some economics classes not being much better in this regard.

Poor mother and children - Oklahoma, 1936