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Ken Burns's America

Packaging the Past for Television

  • Book
  • © 2001

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Authors:
  1. Gary R. Edgerton
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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Rebirth of a Nation: Reframing The Civil War (1990) on Prime-Time Television

    • Gary R. Edgerton
    Pages 1-25

  3. Life Lessons: Learning the Basics on Brooklyn Bridge (1982)

    • Gary R. Edgerton
    Pages 27-49

  4. Variations on a Theme: American Originals, Symbols, and Institutions

    • Gary R. Edgerton
    Pages 51-84

  5. The Creative Team as Historian: Inside the Production Process on Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (1992)

    • Gary R. Edgerton
    Pages 85-108

  6. A Whole New Ball Game: Baseball (1994) and The West (1996) as Event TV

    • Gary R. Edgerton
    Pages 109-150

  7. American Lives: Thomas Jefferson (1997) and the Television Biography as Popular History

    • Gary R. Edgerton
    Pages 151-179

  8. Ken Burns’s America Reconsidered: Mainstreaming Jazz (2001) for a National Audience

    • Gary R. Edgerton
    Pages 181-218

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 219-268
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About this book

This is the first book-length study to critically examine the work of Ken Burns, the innovative producer-director as a television auteur, a pivotal programming influence within the industry, and a popular historian who portrays a uniquely personal and compelling version of the country's past for tens of millions of viewers nationwide. Ken Burns's America has a three-fold agenda: First it looks at the ideas and individuals that have influenced Burns in the creation of his easily-recognized style, as well as in the development and maturation of his ideological outlook. Second, the book gives readers a window on the Ken Burns production machine. Gary Edgerton shows us the inner working of Florentine Films. Finally, he looks at Burns as a popular historian who reevaluates the nation's historical legacy from a new generational perspective and, in the process, becomes one of the major cultural commentators of our era. The volume finally takes the full measure of the man and the industry he has helped to create.

Reviews

'In the end, Edgerton ably proves that although Burns is not an academic scholar, he is a historian nevertheless.' - Library Journal

'absorbing...informative and probing book.' - Booklist

'...Edgerton does an admirable job of taking the measure of the man...' - Time Out New York

'This is a fine book about a masterful TV documentary film maker...' - Indianapolis Star

About the author

GARY R. EDGERTON is Professor and Chair of the Communications and Theatre Arts Department at Old Dominion University. He is the co-editor of the Journal of Popular Film and Television and has published four books and more than fifty essays on a wide assortment of film, television, and culture topics in a variety of books and scholarly journals.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Ken Burns's America

  • Book Subtitle: Packaging the Past for Television

  • Authors: Gary R. Edgerton

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05482-1

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History Collection, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2001

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-312-23646-5Published: 18 February 2002

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-63110-0Published: 18 February 2002

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-05482-1Published: 30 April 2016

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: X, 268

  • Topics: Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary

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