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Simon Schama doesn't just write history, he wants to star in it

There's nothing like a television camera to make a historian go all giddy and coy, but in this case we have Schama Unbound. His latest book is intended to accompany his new BBC series about America on the eve of its presidential election. What is an American and what makes the country tick? Like any good historian - and Simon Schama is very good - he looks backward in order to see forward. But that damn camera turns this project into performance history with Schama the Star - a couple of jokes, a little soft shoe and then a whammy insight.

In fact, Schama is an entire cast unto himself. Sometimes he is the wry Observer asking questions because he already knows the answers. Sometimes he is the outraged Moralist lecturing a presumably rapt audience on how iniquitous Americans can be. Sometimes he is Uncle Remus sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch whittling (doubtless a perfect replica of the Winged Victory of Samothrace) and spinning yarns. And sometimes he is a fine historian plucking little-known players from American archives and depicting how they represent the essential American character.
Read entire article at Raymond Seitz in the Telegraph (UK)