Monday Morning Music: “American Experience”
October 13, 2008
American Experience: It’s difficult to imagine a more emotional piece of music only 43 seconds long…
Tonight’s episode is about Richard Nixon. The episodes I’ve seen so far have been just stunningly excellent. The whole Presidents series Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan and Bush is available as a set. I hope they also do Eisenhower, Kennedy, Clinton, Bush II and someday… Obama.
Freind of mine says that since Nixon Americans have been scared of putting clever people in charge.
I don’t know if you’ll be able to get it, but Simon Schama is doing a series effectively about how the US got to Obama “The American Future a History”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7657473.stm
In the first episode he concentrated on the idea of ‘Manifest destiny’. In it he showed/argued that those who argued for restraint in exploiting the natural resources have been seen as wrong, leading to disastors such as the Dustbowl. He traced Carters fall to his call for restraint, especially at the height of oil shortages, and Reagans insinuation that this was against the American people- that Carter didn’t want them to live in luxury.
Yes, this was a nice piece of music…very evocative of Copeland.