I have been watching parts of the History Channel's current extravaganza explaining American history, "America: The Story of Us." I am not impressed with what I have seen so far. Rather than being a real recounting of American history, what I've seen has been a collection of anecdotes, designed at once to attract the more salacious of the viewers' tastes and to promote the pro free-market, pro laissez-faire agenda of its corporate sponsor, the Bank of America.
No attempt has been made, that I've seen anyway, to provide a larger context for the events described beyond the notion that Americans were and are always moving forward, grasping and grappling with problems, all in the name of economic "freedom." The Lewis and Clark expedition has been reduced to a search for new sources of beaver pelts, the most luxurious and profitable furs of that long-gone trade. The tragedy of the Donner party has been reduced to a bad episode of "Unsolved Mysteries," emphasizing the bodies which were never found and the fact that one of the survivors was found next to a cauldron of human blood.
Frankly, recent PBS examinations of both subjects were about a million times better, each.
Nor am I impressed with another basic presumption of the History Channel's series, which is that Americans have always been reaching out for new problems to conquer, and our history moves from success to success, the heroic tale of a unique and heroic people. I'm not denigrating American history--I LOVE American history. But such a non-nuanced telling not only makes the American story two-dimensional, it cheapens it. The truth is more complex, and even more amazing. Just as many--if not more--Americans were trying to get away from oppression (real and perceived), boredom, or their own fiscal and familial woes as were moving forward with a dream of a new ideal in mind. They were running away, not consciously and deliberately moving toward anything. Important aspects of America's story are accidental, not part of some unseen, grand, even God-given, design.
Perhaps worst of all, the sponsor's ads have been deliberately designed to make it difficult to tell the ads from the body of the program. I'm sure Bank of America will claim it was just tailoring the ad content to reflect the importance of the program. Given the usual excesses of unchecked commerce, however, I doubt that. The ads really were designed to make viewers who aren't paying close attention think that B of A is part and parcel of the entire panoply of American history. [Here's where, in conversation, I'd insert one of the best bits from the movie My Favorite Year: "Captain from Tortuga? Captain from crap!"--Ed.]
So watch the series, or even buy the DVDs so that you can watch it again, and again, and again. But watch with a skeptical eye and several grains of salt. I'll have to pass on the salt, however, as part of my new regimen is keeping my sodium intake to under 2 grams per day.
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