Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns has, according to Gary Edgerton, writing in the Journal of Popular Film and Television, has made "the historical documentary a popular and gripping form for large segments of the American viewing public." In such hugely popular films broadcast on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) as The Civil War, Baseball, and Jazz, Burns has, according to Edgerton, "successfully seized the attention of the mass audience through the topics he chooses, as well as created a stylistic approach that is well suited to his subjects and his ideological outlook." Such an ideological outlook includes a celebration of his nation through topics as diverse as war, invention, architecture, music, and sport. His work has been called "Homeric" by some, an evocation of the American experience through its shibboleths and totems, both celebrities and unknowns. In an interview with Edgerton, Burns dubbed himself an "emotional archaeologist," and then...