The Short Answer: An exchange with Ken Burns

Ken Burns' many documentary films include The Civil War and Baseball.

How well is the country holding on to its historic treasures?

It's a mixed bag. We've recognized the value to our economic and spiritual lives in preserving places with historical significance, but there are always forces that seem arrayed against that impulse, and quite often in the midst of difficult times, preservation concerns are set aside. If we have understood anything from our history, it is that we become richer in every sense of the word by preserving historic and natural landscapes.

Can people make better use of history in preserving such places?

Yes. Harry Truman said, "The only thing that's new in the world is the history you don't know." When we're armed with a historical awareness, we are enriched in every dimension. We can solve complex political questions in the present, ensure ourselves a future, and come to value the importance of place.

How important is regionalism in shaping one's outlook on history?

Our identities are shaped in many ways. We have a worldview, a national identity, and a sense of clan, family, and self. But today we don't notice as much the areas from which we sprang, places that have made us who we are today.

Is distinct regionalism, then, in decline in America?

Absolutely. Chain stores are often like algae in a pond, choking out local expression and local possibility. And that's an incredibly dangerous thing. As a consequence, we all have a homogeneous set of experiences that, paradoxically, drive us further apart. One would think that regional differences would do that, but those differences actually remind us of the ideas that we have in common. Right now we have a kind of psychological and cultural civil war going on that is quite different from the original Civil War.

Who are the combatants?

Those whose political and economic agendas thrive on disunion. The great strength of our country is the idea that out of many comes one. I've tried to be in the business of unum. What we all share is much more substantial, significant, and durable than what we don't share. I would rather focus on the commonality than on the distinctions that provide momentary advantage for this group or that. Preserving this commonality is part of what Lincoln called heeding "the better angels of our nature."

These forces of disunion ebb and flow. Sometimes we're susceptible, and we yield. At other times we're outraged, and we rise up to stop another shopping center on a battlefield or, in a larger sense, stop those who try to make distinctions between people based upon political or religious circumstances.

How important is preservation of place in the recalling of history?

It's critical. We strain to listen to the ghosts and echoes of our inexpressibly wise past, and we have an obligation to maintain these places, to provide these sanctuaries, so that people may be in the presence of forces larger than those of the moment.

What are you working on now?

A documentary about our national parks. That has provided the opportunity to stand in front of what has been called America's best idea, the notion that land can be set aside not for noblemen or kings but for everyone, for all time, unimpaired, and that we can revel in the great beauty, as well as the fragility, of the natural world.

Do you see the national parks as cultural or natural assets?

Both. They're a kind of living organism that has gone through its own fascinating evolution. In the beginning we set aside land because of its scenic beauty. Later, there seemed to be some value to antiquities, so the Grand Canyon was set aside because there was archaeological evidence of native cultures. Later, noblesse oblige took over, and the Rockefellers, for example, helped establish Acadia and the Grand Tetons and the Smokies. More recently we've been interested in both the ecological areas and those with historical significance. We're beginning to have a marvelous conversation between our present and our past, between the man-made and the natural.

Can history be revealed through buildings and landscapes?

I rely heavily on voices to help bring a story alive, but it's not the only way. In films on the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the Shakers, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Thomas Jefferson, we focused on what buildings and landscape have to say to us. And then in the series on the Civil War and the West, we used landscape to evoke the presence of these ghosts.

What can the federal government do to preserve historic places?

We want an energetic, intellectually curious federal system, one that will repair what has decayed in recent years but one that is also mindful of the fact that we are constantly creating history and need to be discriminating in the way we select and preserve. That comes from an active interest on the part of citizens, and the government.

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