# What’s your favorite Ken Burns documentary?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-ken-burns-documentary/919938>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 6, 2020, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-ken-burns-documentary/919938 "2020-09-06T13:54:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2020, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-ken-burns-documentary/919938/21 "2020-09-07T15:12:45Z")

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I voted Civil War, hands down. There was so much that we never learned from the history books, like how families and communities were torn apart by the tragedy and often pointlessness of that war.

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**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2020, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-ken-burns-documentary/919938/22 "2020-09-07T15:30:55Z")

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The only one I’ve seen is Country Music, which I thought was excellent. I should watch more of them.

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**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2020, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-ken-burns-documentary/919938/23 "2020-09-07T16:43:33Z")

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I too loved _The Civil War_ when it first aired (30 years ago this month!), but its got some blind spots that are particularly jarring in our current moment. I understand why Burns makes so much use of Shelby Foote, he’s an incredibly charming and engaging presenter. But he’s not a historian, and tends toward “both sides-ism” when talking about the causes of the war (e.g. blaming the root cause of the war on a “failure to compromise” rather than Southern intransigence). Its also almost entirely a military history, and presents officers and soldier on both sides as men fighting for what they believe is right. Which isn’t necessarily wrong, but it largely elides that one side was explicitly fighting for the continuation of human enslavement.

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**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2020, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-ken-burns-documentary/919938/24 "2020-09-07T17:39:32Z")

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Shelby Foote isnt a historian? Wow.

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>
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**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2020, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-ken-burns-documentary/919938/25 "2020-09-07T20:13:30Z")

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Apologies, I should have said an academic historian. I believe Foote thought of himself as a novelist first and foremost, and deliberately eschewed traditional markers of academic historical research.

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